January 2007: It's Still the Early Dawn of the Data-Driven Web
Quote of the Month
The API marketplace ecosystem: Some providers believe there's a role for a
neutral market-maker that provides the commercial infrastructure for customers
to locate and sign up for API services that they can assemble into applications.
A good example is the StrikeIron marketplace.
– ZDNet: What flavor is
your ecosystem? by Phil Wainright
Note from the President
What’s New at StrikeIron?
StrikeIron in the News
What Can StrikeIron Do For You?
What’s New in Web Services?
Note from the President: It's Still the Early Dawn of
the Data-Driven Web
For quite some time now, StrikeIron has been suggesting that the as the
Internet evolves, it will become more and more a medium for transferring data
between smart applications, Web sites, and a myriad of new devices, rather than
the world's largest virtual tradeshow where everyone has a booth full of product
literature.
We are still in the very early days of this gradual metamorphosis, but in the
past twelve months we have really seen some exciting innovation that continues
to move us all in this direction.
Building smart clients to consuming and utilize the seas of data available on
the Web, as well as data available internally, has come under many names. These
include "mashups", "situational applications", "rich Internet applications" and
"composite applications" to name a few, and I'm sure we will continue to see
some creative new ones. The common thread between all of the endeavors that the
vendors in this space are undertaking is the ability for significantly larger
groups of people to build these applications than have traditionally been able
to build useful software (meaning business users and your garden-variety Web
surfer, rather than just overworked programmers with long work queues already in
place), therefore proliferating the utility of the Web and unleashing a powerful
new wave of creativity with hundreds of millions of contributors worldwide.
The great news is that the tools available to build these applications are
increasing in number, functionality, and sophistication, pointing to an exciting
future for this grand amalgamation of the Web.
For example, Andrew Trice of Cynergy Systems built a really nice mashup
(Adobe's Flex2) utilizing census data and zip code information data (compiled,
aggregated, and made freely available via StrikeIron's Super Data Pack set of
data sources), and combining it with Yahoo Map Data. See Cynergy Blog. And here is the application.
Adobe's Flex 2 is just one example of the many tools and groups of
technologies giving birth to these burgeoning and innovative forms of reuse.
Others enabling the mixing and matching of data sources and functionality across
the Web include our own SOA Express (enables mashups to be built in Microsoft
Excel), IBM's QEDWiki and Adieu, Ajax (with companies like Zimbra and JackBe
leading the way), Kapow's Mashup Server, NexaWeb, Ratchetsoft, Above All
Software, and many more on the way. All of these technologies and vendors are
giving momentum to the wave.
So the sun is definitely on the horizon, and we at StrikeIron intend to do
our best to ensure that all of these platforms, tools, and development
environments have consistent, frictionless access to all of the data sources
they need to make these applications fly. If we don't have one you need, let us
know, and we will do our best to get it.
Bob Brauer
President and CEO, StrikeIron
What’s New at StrikeIron?
Cynergy Systems Mashup
Andrew Tyce from Cynergy has created a great mashup that merges census data with Yahoo maps to give users a demographic overview by ZIP Code. <Mashup>
StrikeIron in the News
ZDNet: What flavor is your ecosystem?
Perhaps there's a place in the Web 2.0 (or I should say Web 3.0) era for that kind of ecosystem, but it's just one of a number of different flavors of ecosystem that vendors and users will choose from.
<ecosystem>
What Can StrikeIron Do For You?
Mashup Contest!
StrikeIron and O'Reilly Media are teaming together to sponsor a Telephony Mashup Contest at the 2007 O'Reilly Etel (February 27-March 1). For more details, visit
www.strikeiron.com/developers/contest.aspx or contact developer@strikeiron.com.
What’s New in Web Services?
StrikeIron Foreign Exchange Rates
Get current and historical foreign exchange rates for 23 current and 9 legacy currencies. <Foreign Rates>