How, in just a few short years, have mashups suddenly sprung up everywhere? The story leads back to just a few years ago. After the technology industry’s financial bubble collapsed in 2001, internet firms regrouped and redefined themselves. There were business lessons to be learned, technologies to be re-evaluated, and people’s perceptions had changed. By the middle of the decade, many trends and differences became clear. The term “Web 2.0” started to surface, to draw separation between new sites and sites that gained popularity in the late Nineties. The term was vague and seemed suspiciously gimmicky at first. However, the differences between old and new were real. They were not just historical and chronological. Sites like Google, YouTube, and Flickr demonstrated new approaches to building a web business. These sites often had simple interfaces, fully embraced web services, and returned a lot of control to the user. Many of these sites relied solely on their users for content. In September 2005, technology publisher Tim O’Reilly wrote an article entitled What Is Web 2.0 to succinctly declare the traits of Web 2.0 versus 1.0 sites. There were two characteristics that were direct catalysts for the growth of mashups:
Importance of Data
User Communities
The first characteristic is the importance of data. The question of who owned data and what they choose to do with the data became a big issue. Why in the world would companies invest millions of dollars to gather their data and their database systems, but then freely give it away for others to use? The answer is by opening their systems, mashup developers help increase the reach of the data owners.
O’Reilly used the example of MapQuest to illustrate this. MapQuest was the leader in mapping in the mid to late nineties. However, their system was closed and did not allow outside parties to do anything with their data. In the early Aughts, mapping sites started to leverage this weakness. Yahoo! Maps, Microsoft Virtual Earth, and Google Maps entered the market, and each one had APIs. Despite the huge early market lead, MapQuest quickly lost to bigger players with open data. There are many examples like this. Amazon opened up their data through the Amazon Ecommerce Service (ECS). Many mashups have used this web service to create their own store fronts. Amazon gets the sale and gives a percentage to mashup developers. This has created many more channels for Amazon to sell their goods besides www.amazon.com. Contrast this with a site like BarnesAndNoble.com which does not open their data. The only channel that they can sell is through the main website. Not only do they lose sales opportunities, but they lack the affiliate loyalty that Amazon has.
In our earlier examples, Wii Seeker helps the Target by funneling buyers to stores. Wii Seeker in turn, receives adverting revenue and affiliate commissions on their site. Google Videos, Google News, and Digg.com get visitors when a user clicks on a link from astrolicious.us. Astrolicious.us gets advertising revenue with very little development time invested.
The second characteristic is that user added data is more valuable than we once thought. User product reviews on ecommerce sites are nothing new. Neither are web forums. However, it is how sites are using this information, and who owns the data, that is becoming important. Movie rental site Netflix has always allowed users to rate movies they have watched. Based on these recommendations, Netflix will suggest other movies you might like. Recently, they have added a new social networking feature called “Friends”, where you can see how your friends have rated movies and what they are watching. One feature of Friends is compatibility ratings. Comparing both you and your friends’ recommendations, Netflix comes up with a percentage of your shared movie tastes.
Other sites are completely dependent on user-added data. YouTube and Flickr provide video and picture hosting, respectively, for free. Their widespread adoption, though, is not simply from hosting. Before Flickr, there were many sites that hosted images for free. That was nothing new. The difference, again, is what both sites do with user-added data. Both sites provide social networking features. You can leave your ratings and comments on a hosted item and you can subscribe to a person’s profile. Anytime that person uploads something, you will be notified of the new content. Both sites also allow folksonomic tagging, which basically lets uploaders describe the content with their own keywords. Visitors can use these keywords to search when they are looking for content. Tagging has proven to be an incredible aid for search algorithms.
Thus, it is these two characteristics of new sites that have allowed small web developers to appear much bigger. Backed with data from large internet presences, mashup developers create usage channels that data owners could not have foreseen, or been restricted by business rules.