Mashapp to Mashup: " I am your father.. " - BY ILYA

In my previous article, I posed the question. What exactly is a mashup? It's true defenition has been elusive and I evidently concluded that there is a definition out there somewhere between entertainment and technology. Today I want to take a stand on one definition and direct it over towards a new direction and terminology which I believe is more appropriate and fitting.

Take on this. If you search Twitter at any given time for "mashup". You are likely to experience a deluge of tweets linking you to the latest and greatest piece of mashed up entertainment in that moment for you to sit back and enjoy. Now, if you switch over to a website like programmable web and do the same thing, you are likley to experience a deluge of software mashups linking you to the latest and greatest, and more often then not, utilitarian applications that you can actively engage with.

On one end you have music, entertainment and accessibility and on the other you have enterprise, utility, and specialty but both are talking mashups.

Why is there such a disconnect and polarity between technologists and the rest of the world when it comes to this subject? It's almost like a case of where left brain meets right.

I think the problem really lies in accessibility. The most accessible definition is the one that is adopted by the masses. Accessibility to most everybody means "I dont want to do anything, I dont want to think about anything, I just want to experience". Accessibility means using your creative, entertainment loving right brain hemisphere.

Accessibility has notoriously been at best a kooky neighbor at a dinner party to software API's. Its getting better, but we're far from making Larry a member of the family. In order to make API's and the creation of software mashups accessible to people and if we want people to have fun and adopt the creation of software mashups, they need to meet some basic demands of "Unless I have to, I dont want to do anything, I dont want to think about anything, I just want to experience".

When it comes to technologies that implore people to adopt something new and novel, I think this mantra makes a lot of sense. The creation of software mashups needs to be more automated, more intillegent of a users intention, and simply let the user experience what they came to experience and on their own predicted terms. If this can be accomplished, we will begin to see the trend shift of what a mashup really means. I perdict that soon we will begin to see more specialized and personalized mashups that require no configuration. The applications will start off simple but as a users intention graph begins to shape, more advanced functionality can be automated and built just for them. Already you have API's like the Facebook Open Graph. The open graph can enable internet experiences to become more automated and personalized. Utilizing methods of the open graph well let users experience mashups on their own terms and this is one the things that will help re-define what a mashup means in the software world. Things are about to become more accessible and we are going to see another sort of software mashup.

So what will this new mashup look like? Will mashup development tools continue to alienate developers? Will the process continue to dumb things down at the expense of empowering the developer? And most importantly will developers lose interest and stick to their more powerful development enviorment alternatives?, think Popfly.

I think the question can be answered in the following way..

The traditional software mashup will itself split into two categories. You will have the developers creating enabling technologies to accommodate a subset of less skillful users to create their own mashups. Software developers will ultimately be the platform creators and the audience will fill the functionality and data gaps in an easy and predictable and personalized manner.

There will still be software mashups, but these will be far more accessible. Developers will enable users to create their own personalized mashups by facilitating them through the MASHAPP.

Can this Mashapp take the traditional software mashups place? I believe so.

This new mashapp will ultimately be used to allow anyone to create the software mashup. I believe re-comtemplating the definition will help us re-asses how we move forward with the semantic web.