The ever-fascinating mashup ecosystem

Surprise - I’m doing some of the fun parts of my thesis first. What I really need to focus on is my first presentation coming up this month, where I lay out my research plans to the faculty and proceed to get light- to medium-roasted.

A key part of that is the literature review, where I demonstrate that I’ve effectively surveyed existing research and am providing a new and valuable contribution. But despite my helpful DabbleDB paper index, it’s slow progress.

But on to the fun part: starting to map out the key players and events within the mashup ecosystem. Aside from the usual suspects such as Google Maps, I’ve discovered a wide range of “complementary assets”, platforms and communities all tied to this ecosystem. It’s fascinating.

Here are some great examples:

• The Open Stack as an architecture AND a social movement. Its influence on the web platform and competition with the likes of Facebook Connect.

• Programmable web as the key API/mashup index. It’s like the town center.

• The constant release of new APIs such as Kiva’s API. I’m already a big fan of Kiva, but the mind boggles at this outreach and innovation potential.

• Energy surrounding mashup security issues - oAuth and Microsoft’s WebSandbox.

• Service language and protocol evolution. SOAP, XML, JSON, REST, ATOM.

• The mashup/portability paradigm carried over into specific enterprise segments, such as enterprise content management. The CMIS initiative is seeing a lot of energy recently.

• The arrival of services such as Mashery, who offer API infrastructure and management services. Mashery also sponsors an API conference called “The Business of APIs”.

• A plethora of enterprise mashup platforms on offer. Jackbe, IBM, Microsoft, Denodo to name a few.