The Easy Way to Create a Web Mashup

Online users are creating Web mashups like crazy. A Web mashup is a collection of services and functions which when combined create a unique useful Web application. Incorporating the APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) and features from Web sites such as Yahoo, YouTube, Google Maps, Craigslists, Amazon, and a host of others, you can develop a mashup applications such as http://www.housingmaps.com which combines Craigslist listings housing for rent ads and Google maps to display the physical area map location of the housing area that is listed in a Craigslist want ad for rent.

You can combine raw data from any number of application sources to build a mashup. Directory listings, GPS data, shopping cart outputs, video search results, search engine results, RSS feeds, blog post, the data sources are endless. The downside to Web mashup creation is that it is not very easy. You need somewhat of a computer programmers mindset to create them because the available mashup creation applications have not transitioned into the WYSISYG(what you see is what you get) format that so many of us computer and Internet users are accustom to. But that does not mean you should not attempt to create your own Web mashup.

Yahoo Pipes is a mashup creation tool that gives us nonprogrammer types the ability to build our own Web mashups. However, even it is not WYSIWYG simple. But the simplicity in using Yahoo Pipes to build your own Web mashup comes in the availability of the thousands of other mashups created by others which you can clone and repurpose into your own custom mashup. This removes a lot of the challenge of creating a Web mashup from scratch. Review the list of available mashups at Yahoo Pipes (http://pipes.yahoo.com), select an existing pipes design that performs many of the similar functions you are looking to add to your mashup, save it, tweak it, and make it your own.

Building a Web mashup with Yahoo Pipes is a drag and drop affair. The documentation link on Yahoo Pipes home page will provide you with links to tutorials, sample pipes and other helps. You need a Yahoo ID to sign in and create a pipe. The Pipes editor consists of filters and modules, each of which performs a specific function. You must provide the data source. You control the data manipulation and output by the module and filtering you assign to the data source. You can test your mashup by running your pipe. If the output is what you want you click publish to share your Web mashup with others.

In most cases, to simply clone and tweak an existing mashup will involve you replacing a few of the existing data feeds or filtering routines. When you open an existing mashup it displays the sources of the data and the modues used to create the functionality of the pipe. If you review the internal structure of the existing mashup, as you tweak it, you will develop an understanding of how they are assembled and created. This will enable you to begin building your own Web mashup from scratch in no time. Yahoo Pipes includes a lot of tutorials and information to assist you pump out your own mashup. Join the Web mashup craze. Create your own and share it with the world.

Resource: Yahoo Pipes - http://pipes.yahoo.com

Tags: yahoo pipes, mashups, web mashups, mashup how to, create a pipe