It's all mashed up now

Technology mash-ups are all the rage right now. It's seems to be a byproduct of the web 2.0 / open source mindset. With so many companies releasing the source code to significant parts of their software, it's become easier than ever to spawn new services.

The daddy on this is Google Maps which has been mashed more times than a sack full of spuds. It's been mashed with BBC News to give BBC News Maps so you can see where top stories are coming from (and run the other way). Combine it with a whole bunch of others and you get Weather Bonk (not sure how well that translates into UK English) that shows the weather where you are without you having to look out the window. It's even been mashed with Flickr to create Dog Friendly Hotels. In fact, the ProgrammableWeb site lists over 500 others using Google Maps and over 1,000 mash-ups in total.

There are, of course, mash-up marketing opportunities for companies both in terms of creating new services and in how they communicate and engage with customers. Just one example sees social networkers using their own prestige and connections to sell personalised products (eg NikeID gear).

Surely this is just the beginning. Increasingly, communications must have intrinsic value in their own right over and above their informational content. Engaging with the customer, partnering with them to create solutions, entertaining them in interactive, non-linear ways – these are the characteristics typifying more and more successful marketing initiatives today.

We can do this interactively through adding mashed functionality into interactive comms. Or we can take on a mashed mindset to create more effective, more integrated campaigns. The result, I believe, will be deeper, more enduring relationships with customers (plus, we'll have more fun in the process).

Source: ProgrammableWeb (via ValleyWag).