Developed by combining two different sources and then displaying it as a third look is the idea behind mashup. Mashup is a web application that is growing in popularity as app developers continue to push the limits of what is done using smart phone technology. Created by both hackers and web developers, the potential for this method of programming is limitless.
In layman’s terms, a computer programmer would take information from one site, mix the data with information from another site and then display the results on yet a third site. The name was taken from the hip-hop music scene, where people would mash two song styles together.
A recent explosion of mash-ups has broken out because the internet giants (Amazon, Google and Yahoo, to name a few) gave free access to the core of their industry for use with other applications. One of the most popular forms of mash-ups are maps. The information from one map can be laid directly over top of another map, giving the user a clear picture of what the roads will be like. It may highlight features that are near the destination on the map, such as restaurants, stores and banks.
These creative applications of web-information have resulted in some of the most used process on the web. There are three main types of mash-ups: business related, consumer mash ups and data mash ups.