Learning from Mashups

Yesterday and today I spent time creating a Job Aggregator on Yahoo! Pipes and then building a frontend on Google Mashup Editor. After spending some time on Yahoo! Pipes editor, I was able to build a Job Aggregator which incorporated Google Base, Monster.com and Hotjobs. This is how it works:

1. User inputs a job query in the textbox
2. User hits submit
3. The request is sent to the Yahoo! Pipes engine
4. The Yahoo! Pipes engine inturn creates a copy of the request and submits it to Google Base, Monster.com and Hotjobs
5. The responses from each job site are sent back to Yahoo! Pipes engine.
6. Yahoo! Pipes inturn aggregators the responses and removes duplicates
7. Yahoo! Pipes engine then presents the data to the user.

The Yahoo! Pipe which I created can be seen at http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=gl_zggBz3BGfqGtH1vC6Jw

Yahoo! Pipe also offers another service which is to create a rss feed for the service I just created.

I in turn took this RSS feed and rendered it in Google Mashup Editor. I have to say that Google Mashup Editor still needs alot of work. For instance I could not create URLs to extract information. I had to hard code the Yahoo! Pipes queries and just show the results. It was frustrating but for now it has to do. The front-end can be seen at:

• http://pipe-dream-jobs.googlemashups.com/

GME Team-If you are reading this entry then please add the url builder functionality. It will make your editor more robust. You might also think of adding gwt tags to promote your GWT product.

Can Businesses act on Mashup'ed Data?

A few days ago I got invited to use Google Mashup Editor and currently I have been analyzing Google Mashup Editor and Yahoo! Pipes. I am waiting for an invite to try Microsoft's Popfly. This has me thinking. Currently mashup's allow non-technical users to discover data sources, connect to the data sources, get data from the data sources and aggregate the data from other data sources. This is great since it allows the users to get the important data from various data sources. It is implied that the users are using their natural processes to process information from the web. However the big question is:
"Can decision makers make decisions based on "Mashup'ed data?"

If a decision maker makes a terrible decision based on "Mashup'ed data" then who is liable for the data. Can the decision maker trust the data for him to an important decision? How fresh and reliable is the data? How reliable is the Mashup?

Mashups for now are cool but I feel they are gimmicky if there is no assurance on the mashup or its data. Can we start writing MLAs "Mashup Level Agreements"? Only time will tell if Mashups are successful in the corporate world.