Mashups are beginning to take off

Businesses of all kinds are trying to work out how they can make the most of the next generation of internet services.

The London Olympic committee wants to use Web 2.0 social-networking technologies to make the most of audience participation in the 2012 games; Brewer SABMiller is investing in internal collaboration systems; and Tesco wants its online shop to have a community feel.

'Web 2.0 technologies are hitting the mainstream in the business context, driven by gains in worker efficiency and a fear of competitive pressures,' said Forrester analyst Oliver Young.

One of the fastest-growing areas is the 'mashup'. A mashup takes data held on separate applications and mashes it together to create a new and useful picture ' such as combining supply chain information with weather maps to show which supply trucks might be delayed.

The results achievable with mashups have traditionally been available only to large companies with sizeable budgets for software development.

But the growing availability of simple, web-based tools could let firms correlate data on a more ad hoc basis, moving businesses a step nearer to universal, real-time digital collaboration.

Mashups take a fundamentally different approach to the use and storage of information.

In the early stages, most businesses tend to stick to internal pilots such as supply chain data merged with customer relationship management (CRM) systems to check if customers who receive goods faster are happier.

Once the benefits become obvious, firms will be more likely to consider linking data using the internet.

'Businesses are scared of letting valuable information outside their walls,' said Young.

But when the benefits are more tangible the technique will become more popular.

'It is a matter of setting up the proper protocols within a mashup platform,' he said.

Mashups are still far from the mainstream but interest is growing and some big names are leading the way - see box, below.

Salesforce.com, which offers its customer CRM software facilities over the internet, has been using mashups for more than a year.

One marries the firmís contact system with the Skype web-based telephony platform and Yahoo instant messenger. By linking with applications that show when a person is online, Salesforce.com can search for available contacts.

Another, based on Google ads, offers customers details on which particular advertisements have resulted in sales.

'Until now it was difficult to calculate the effect of an advert just from web site hits,' said Clarence So, chief marketing officer at Salesforce.com.

'The mashup allows users of Google ads to see the returns of their investment,' he said.

Unsurprisingly, suppliers are queueing up to get in on this. Google and Microsoft already offer tools to perform mashups, and the companies are vying for supremacy in the nascent online collaboration market.

The search giant's ultimate aim is for all information to be held on the internet, rather than on internal systems - hence the development of Google applications, an online office suite complete with space for advertising.

Though Microsoft does not yet make its office applications available on the web, it already allows participating businesses to share information with each other over the closed Microsoft Live platform. And it is testing an ad-supported version of its Works package with a cache of adverts that refreshes every time the user connects.

Real-time online data sharing is another step towards the concept of utility computing, where computing power is as ubiquitous as electricity and data is held on the network rather than the access device.

For consumers, customised web portals from Google and Yahoo that allow users to personalise information from a range of sources are the first step.

For businesses, the ultimate prize will be to conduct multiple mashups simultaneously.

A number of firms could access each othersí supply chains and sales and customer information at the same time, says Richard Hall, chief technology officer of consultancy Avanade.

'The facility to connect different companies is a big step forward to a joined-up business world,' he said.

'All information will be stored somewhere online and these disparate applications could be mashed together, with one portal for users who no longer know or care where the information comes from.'

Bangers and mashups

Mashups may sound obscure, but business interest in the technique for combining information held in different applications is growing.

There are already some high-profile examples.

German car manufacturer Audi, for example, is using a mashup to draw on 20 different sources of information, both internal and external, to analyse the performance of its A-series range. And BBC News uses the technique with Google maps to create graphics showing where events are happening.

The latest predictions from analyst Gartner say mashups will hit the mainstream within two years and provide significant benefits to firms within the decade.

And more than one in five of the 300 executives surveyed by consultancy McKinsey said they either already use or plan to use mashup technology.

But it may be some time before mashups become critical, says Forrester analyst Oliver Young.

'A significant proportion of businesses using mashups are using them experimentally, rather than as a business strategy,' he said.

Few executives say that their companies are using more than two of these te chnologies. But nearly two-thirds of those investing said they are important for maintaining market position.