Mashups, more specifically called web application hybrids by Wikipedia, have been an exciting trend in web applications in recent years. Web mashups are exactly what they sound like—web applications that merge data from one or more sources and present them in new ways. Very often, the data owners encourage and facilitate third parties to use the data. In many cases, this facilitation is made possible by the data owners providing application programming interfaces (API) to their data. These APIs follow standard web service protocols and can be implemented quickly and easily in a variety of programming languages, including PHP. New, innovative mashups, made by individuals that combine data from traditionally unlikely pairings are popping up every day.

One example is the Wii Seeker site. When the Nintendo Wii launched in November 2006, many knew there would be shortages. The object of the Wii Seeker site is to help people find Wiis by combining expected initial shipment information to Target stores and Google Maps. A marker on a Google Map represented a Target retail store. If the user clicked on the marker they would see information about the store such as the address. They would also see the number of Wiis the store was expected to have on launch day. By representing numerical inventory data on a map, a user could see Target stores near their location and plan their store visits on launch day to maximize their chances of actually finding a Wii.

After the Nintendo Wii was launched, the site reinvented itself by adding auction information from eBay and product information from Amazon. They also added additional chain retail stores like Circuit City and Walmart. Instead of seeing Nintendo Wii inventory information on each store, the site now allows visitors to post notes for each other about the store’s inventory.

Another mashup example is Astrolicio.us. This site queries data feeds from sites like Digg.com, Google News, and Google Videos and presents it to the user on one page. By combining data feeds, the site’s creator has made a portal of current astronomy news for visitors.

On the homepage, the user can quickly scan items that may interest them. For news, the user is given bullet points for each news item containing the headline and a synopsis. For videos, the user is shown a thumbnail. If a user clicks on a link, they are taken to the source of the article or video. This site is clean, simple, and full of information. It is also quite easy to make using the APIs of the sources. It probably did not take the site creator more than an afternoon to go from the start of coding to launch.