So far I have found our group project to be a little bit frustrating. I won’t lie, I was slightly disappointed to learn I was the group leader. Not knowing any of my team members in the real world, I am finding it difficult to assign tasks and keep the group on schedule. I think this is because I am often afraid of coming off as “bossy” or “mean” in electronic communication.

My biggest frustration was getting in touch with my group members. Only one of the three team members responded to my wiki invite right away. I have since learned that technical issues have kept the other team members from getting involved. I am now very relieved that everyone has “checked in.” For a while I thought that we would be short a member and I would have to step up to fill that role.

So far we have used the discussion board in Blackboard to talk about the project. This was frustrating because at first our board was hidden and we were using the Blackboard messaging system to talk. It has been hard for us to find a time to “meet” either in Wimba or another online method to talk all at once. I think that with our schedules this may continue to be a conflict during the project. Ideally we could find a time to get together a meet, but right now between work, classes, personal obligations, and technical issues, this doesn’t seem possible.

Lately, I have been addicted to using Twitter. It’s a really great site that let’s me keep track of my friends and to see what plans might be in the works for the night. So I was really excited when I found the website Twitter Maps! This site is a mashup of Twitter and Google Maps so that I can physically see where all the twitters on my account are coming from. Living in a city as big as Boston, it’s cool to see how spread out or strangely close my friends and I all are at any given time. It’s so much fun to watch all the updates.

Another great site that I have constantly looked at over the past year or so but never realized to be a mashup is Yelp! Yelp! is a reviews site where users can write feedback on restuarants, coffee shops, bars, and even tattoo and piercing parlors in their area. Yelp uses Google Maps to pinpoint locations on a map. For example, I can instantly see every ice cream shop in my zip code with the click of a button. This is useful because if I want ice cream right now, I can see the closest places and reduce the number of T stops it will take to get there. Alternatively, if I’m looking for the bst ice cream out there, I can plan my trip with a quick look at the map so I know how much time I need to set aside on my quest for the perfect frappe.

Mashups are something that I have started to realize I use more than I know. I have often used mashups to locate places near where I live, events going on etc. Google Maps are often a part of these mashups and they are a very helpful resource. This got me thinking… how could I make my own mashup?

A little research has shown me that the first and most important step to making a mashup is picking a topic. What do you want to accomplish with your mashup? To start out easily, using maps seems like the easiest type of mashup since a tool like Google Maps is very easy to use. You will also need to consider how good your coding skills are, if you have them. What types of programming language do you know and which will you use?

Once you’ve picked a topic and brushed up on coding skills, you will need to sign up for an API. This can be done directly through Google and will only take a few minutes to set up and create.

Then, you are on your way to having an original mashup! Start coding and post to the web or a local server!

Simply put, a mashup is a Web application that uses information from multiple sources in order to create one cohesive and user-friendly tool which allows someone to access data from multiple locations with one look saving them time from doing extra research.

Mashups can be intended for the general public or specific business or industry, they can also be either web-based and accessed from any computer or server-based and accessed remotely. Mashups should not be confused with embedded data. Simply inserting a YouTube video or a map from Google Maps onto a website does not make it a mashup. Rather, the creator(s) of the site would need to find a way to layer or modify the data in order to make it a mashup. For example, the site WikiCrimes is a wiki-style site where anyone can go and make edits in a Google Map to show where crimes in their area have taken place. They can then add details about the crime so that people who are interested in the area may look at it and find out what types of crimes take place there.