Web 2.0 'Mash-ups', Applications and The Future

Mash-up is a term that not only applies to the web, but to many other forms of distributed media such as music or film. Although a Web Mash-Up is more to do with mixing different technologies rather than just different genres of media. The term 'Mash-Up', when applied to the Internet, came from the 'Web 2.0' bag of buzzwords, they are hybrid applications. They take two, or more, existing technologies and create a new service which was not provided by any of the sources. Examples of such hybrid applications are The WorldTimeEngine which allows users to find the exact time in any location on the planet using Google Maps and Star Viewer, a mash-up of Google Sky and YouTube from which you can watch videos showing stars, nebulae, and galaxies at quite high levels of detail.
I think that the use of 'Mash-Ups' is only going to increase, I think of it as being the web equivalent of RAD(Rapid Application Development), very few people do the hard work of creating new technologies and lots of people use them and act like they created the underlying concepts, however my view is quite a pessimistic one as I think that as these 'Mash-Ups' become easier to create then some web developers will become lazy and rely on the rest of the world to innovate , which in turn would bring the furthering of technology to a grinding halt. I think that 'Mash-Ups' will eventually be commandeered by the 'Social-Networking' scene, the mySpaces and Facebooks etc, they will be dumbed down to let anyone with half a brain stem use them, for no real use other than to say "Oh look I posted my Blog from here, It's a mile away from my house" or something to that effect. In conclusion I think that for most applications 'Mash-Ups' can be useful tools, and that they should be used by the people that know what they are doing and can create something that is truly new and innovative that can be used and enjoyed worldwide

I know it's late..The strengths and weaknesses of Blogs as collaberative tools

To honest the reason this blog post is late is because I forgot about it and that I had to do it. I was stressing too much on the interin report and why my code was broken. However back to the task in hand.
Blogs are, baically, a way of comunicating with the world. They can be used for all different reasons, some good and some not so. As it can be seen wih a quick trip to myspace most people are using blogs to tell the world how psueo-interesting thier life apparently is. Personally I think that blogs should only be used for a productive reason, like this class. I'm asked for my thoughts I put them on the blog people comment, I get assessed and so on. I cannot really see why people would keep a blog chronicalling every mundane task they ever carry out, maybe this is one of the reasons I have a general hatred for popular culture, and every small incident that ever happens but enough about my hatred of the general public. I do think however that blogs can be used for constructive purposes; such as keeping track of a project, etc....I think that if a blog is witten for a good reason and the author has a good reason to pubish thier ideas/views/findings then it is a very useful and powerful tool. As for bing collaberative I'm still in two minds. Yes Blogs can allow collaberative working but the senario seems a little pointless to me.

1.Authorwrites on Blog
2.Another reads then comments
3.Author reads comments and relplies
4.Loops back to 2.

My main reason for thinking this is a bit pointless is that God knows how much time will pass between stages. For instance say that 2 days passes between each stage and that the blog is chronicalliing a software project. Then in the two days the author could have continued coding something that was yet to be pointed out as wrong at stage 2, then It would have been 4 days until the author realises that what they've just spent the past few days doing has been completely wrong. Personally I think that e-mail and IM are much better than blogs because they , in general, provide instant feedback and for time critical projects this would be crucial.