I think Mashup is a very interesting thing to improve and develop people’s imagination and creativity. It is just like remix different style’s music, into a new and more interesting and creative song. In Mashup, nothing is impossible, only the unexpected.
Personally, a Mashup I used most is an app on iphone, it is called ’Around me’.
In this app, the API/content provider is Google map. This app can mark various location information on Google map. You could choose different kinds of places you want to know where is it. If you choose‘BANK AROUND ME’. It will show all the banks around you on the Google Map.
So I think Mashup is really useful and it has a lot of possibilities。
But, Mashups encounter a lot of challenges too.
Despite the technical challenges, I don’t want to talk about technical challenges, because technology will be developed day by day. The challenge I care about and curious about is the‘Social Challenges’。
As Merrill said in his article, ‘’Unwitting content providers (targets of screen scraping), and even content providers might determine that their content is being used in a manner that they do not approve of’’.
Because Mashup is open, everyone can do it and make it. We could even make it in our spare time and it gives us a lot of fun. But screen scraping, such behavior may be more or less involved in part of the content providers copyright issues. So I think, if it is possible that there is a good balance, that could let Mashup keep open, there are still a lot of people to participate in it, but at the same time it will protect content providers copyright. That’s what I am thinking about.
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