More on Mashups – An Easy, Free Way to Create Custom Web Apps

Posted on September 17, 2006 By LabLynx Blog

Mashups: An Easy, Free Way to Create Custom Web Apps

Hybrid technologies open up new possibilities for nonprofits

By: Brian Satterfield

September 8, 2006

What if you could combine online data from multiple sources to create a customized, interactive Web application that could keep your supporters in the know without requiring them to visit more than one site? And what if you could do so using free, readily available tools, eliminating the need to build an expensive custom solution from the ground up? That’s the idea behind hybrid online applications known as mashups.

Mashups are Web applications that take existing information from various free sources and sites and combine them to create a unique service. Many mashups are highly interactive, allowing a user to specify the amount and type of information he or she wants to see; the vast majority rely heavily on Web 2.0 technologies such as AJAX-based maps, RSS feeds, or blogs.

One example of a nonprofit putting mashups to good use is the New York City Coalition Against Hunger, an organization dedicated to solving New York City’s hunger problem. Using a combination of Google Maps’ free application programming interface (API), geographic data obtained from ArcWeb, and its own information regarding the locations of New York City soup kitchens, the Coalition Against Hunger was able to build an interactive, online map that visually displays the locations of the city’s nearly 1,100 unaffiliated charitable food providers along with information such as their addresses and phone numbers.

As a result of the coalition’s experiment with a map mashup, New York’s neighborhood soup kitchens now have a fast, easy way to find each other, enabling them to work together to better solve the city’s hunger problem.

Tools and Resources for Building Mashups

Like the hunger map, many mashups are built using one or more APIs, software “building blocks” that help you create an application that performs a specific function, be it acquiring data from another Web site or from a database. By incorporating APIs into your organization’s Web site, you can provide access to another party’s information or services and present it in a way that’s relevant to your supporters or audience.

For example, using the Flickr API, you can allow users to search the online photo-sharing site’s database of images using tags — user-specified keywords — directly from your own site or Web-based application. Another example is Amazon.com’s API, which lets you buy products from the well-known Web store without leaving your own site — helpful if your nonprofit wants to raise funds by starting a charity shopping mall.

The vast majority of APIs, including the ones mentioned above, are completely free and open to public use, though most require that you register at the developer’s site before you can use them. Though building a mashup using APIs will require that your nonprofit find a volunteer or staff member with some coding or Web-building experience, just about all APIs come with thorough documentation to help ease the learning curve.

Programmable Web hosts an extensive library of APIs on its API Listing page as well as a large mashup collection.

Mashup Delivers World News, Human-Rights Alerts

RSS feeds offer a convenient method for keeping up with the latest news, but a simple Web page might not always provide the necessary context around a particular story or article. To help present the news in a more visual manner and educate the public about current world affairs, software developer and mashup enthusiast Virender Ajmani built a Web application called Recent News by Country.

Using a combination of the Google Maps API and freely available RSS feeds, Ajmani’s mashup displays a drag-able Google map with buttons for selecting world regions. Once a user has chosen his or her geographical area of interest, the program opens to a map of that region, a red flag marking each country. Clicking a flag brings up a list of that nation’s most recent news stories, as well as a links to Flickr photos tagged with the country’s name. Recent News by Country takes its general news from The New York Times’ RSS feed, while stories about human-rights violations are delivered via Human Rights Watch’s RSS feed.

Although Ajmani could have presented the news feeds on a simple HTML page, he chose to create a mashup for its visual appeal, citing the old adage that a picture is worth a thousand words. He notes that Recent News by Country requires no manual updates or regular maintenance, with the exception of a single instance when he had to update the code to make it compliant with a new version of the Google Maps API.

Because Ajmani has created a number of Google Map-based mashups — including those that track missing children in the United States and air traffic at the Atlanta, Georgia airport, he can often reuse the code from one mashup to another, saving him a lot of setup time. For a full list of map mashups Ajmani has built, visit his personal Web site Mibazaar.

Mashups: More than Just Maps

Although map-based Web applications are by far the most popular types of mashups, some creators have integrated media such as MP3s and e-commerce engines into their own hybrid concoctions. Below, we’ve listed a few non-map mashups of particular interest to nonprofits. If you’re looking for something that isn’t listed here, you can also search Programmable Web by keywords such as “blogs” or “wiki” to find mashups that utilize a certain technology.

Givezilla
Using Amazon.com’s API, Givezilla creates branded fundraising stores (like the aforementioned charity malls) specifically for nonprofits. An organization’s supporters or constituents can simply visit its store and browse products available at Amazon.com via a categorized sidebar or the featured products spotlight. Whenever a person purchases a product from that nonprofit’s store, the organization receives the 7.5 percent referral fee from Amazon.com.
Nonprofits interested in creating their own free Givezilla store can sign up at the service’s Join Our Community page.
Podbop
This mashup for music fans combines MP3 files with concert listings from Eventful — an online database of events — in a wiki-like interface that allows visitors to contribute to the site’s content. Music lovers can simply enter their city’s name to see a list of all upcoming shows; in many cases, the artists or labels have provided downloadable or streaming audio files that listeners can use to determine whether they want to attend the concert. Concert listings in the Eventful database tagged with the keyword “music” automatically appear in Podbop, though bands and other users are free to add their own show dates. Podbop staffers also regularly contribute to a blog featuring music festival coverage, artist interviews, and news.
Strmz
Strmz integrates a wide variety of streaming video clips, video blogs, and video podcasts from around the Web, allowing visitors to subscribe to video channels via RSS and browse clips according to their tags. Visitors browse videos by categories such as Movies, Sports, and Lifestyle and can add their favorite clips to a playlist. When available, Strmz lets you subscribe to RSS feeds from the videos’ sources, which include sites such as MSNBC, CNN, and Reuters. Members can tag individual videos with select keywords, allowing other Strmz users to easily find them. (Editors’ note: Strmz provides some videos that contain explicit or adult-themed content. )

With the right combination of free resources, technical know-how, and creative thinking, any nonprofit can create a mashup that provides their audience with information that will compel them to get involved — a perfect solution for organizations that are short on funds but big on imagination.

About the Author:

Brian Satterfield is Staff Writer at TechSoup.

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