Mashing it up: Why and How
Mike Ellis, Eduserv, United Kingdom
Distributed computing - where data is consumed from external websites, sometimes 'mashed', or displayed in some other way on your own site, has become a powerful way of providing functionality and requires little or no financial outlay or technical understanding.
This workshop will look at some of the data sources and services available to museums and examine some of the ways that they can be combined or otherwise used on your site. It also looks at the benefits and potential pitfalls of working in this way.
By the end of the workshop you will:
- Understand the concepts behind distributed computing and what this can bring to your site
- Be able to find (reliable!) sources of data on the web
- Understand what is required to put together various simple mashups and embed them on your site
- Have seen demonstrations of the three major mashup editors: Yahoo Pipes, Microsoft Popfly and Google mashup editor
- Understand some of the issues associated with this way of working, and ways in which these issues can be addressed
Workshop attendees should have a reasonable understanding of web technologies. Those with basic HTML skills and beyond may be able to make simple mashups in the end; those who supervise will be able to ask for the right things.
Keywords: mashup, web 2.0, distributed computing, ASP, web services
