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"It's official, folks: tools for easy mashup creation are a \"must have\" if you're a huge IT company. Intel's recent announcement of MashMaker puts them side by side with Google, Microsoft and Yahoo!, but there are several other contenders in this unexpectedly crowded space. \nAll these tools have one thing in common: they make it easier to do things that only programmers could do until now. Each of them has a quite different approach, which makes this a very diverse set of applications. Will these tools be a foundation for a new breed of easy-made applications that will become a strong presence on the web in a year or two, or will they be merely toys for enthusiasts with too much time on their hands? Let's look at the players and what they have to offer.\nTHE BIG GUNS\nYahoo! Pipes\n\nYahoo!'s Pipes probably got the most press of all the apps in this bunch, and rightly so: it's a fantastic visual tool that anyone can use. Almost completely avoiding the need to use complex syntax, Pipes lets you create advanced RSS-based mashups within minutes. Since its initial appearance, the Pipes dev team added several much needed features, for example the simple math module which allows for basic arithmetic operations and geo features which allow for creation of map mashups. Unfortunately, as you can see by the activity on the official forum, Pipes still hasn't made a big impact and we've yet to see the first really great applications based on it. \nPipes is not without issues, either. Seasoned programmers will most probably hate the fact that they're stuck with the visual representation of their mashup and cannot access the code behind it. Furthermore, the visual nature of Pipes can sometimes result in weird bugs - modules not responding and such - which can sometimes only be fixed by creating a completely new pipe. Those who can't understand code, however, will gladly disregard these issues for a chance to create actual applications without advanced programming skills. \nMicrosoft Popfly\n\nMicrosoft's Popfly aims to be a simple yet powerful tool which allows non-programmers to create mashups. It's somewhat similar to Pipes - it lets you create Blocks, which are \"chunks of code that wrap complex operations, like retrieving data from a Web site or displaying an animated slideshow.\" Then, you connect those blocks into a complete mashup through a visual GUI. However, Popfly is currently marked as alpha and to try it out you need an invitation; those are near-impossible to get at this stage. You can, however, watch the screencast presentation. \nThis is a weird approach. Why announce an application (and have all that initial press coverage drift away from people's minds) if you're not going to let anyone use it in weeks or even months? Gmail's, and, more recently, Pownce's model of controlled spreading by giving invitees the ability to invite more users seems like a much better idea. But, even with this prolonged launch, Popfly will still be an interesting contender when it fully opens up, because it'll be the first big test for the Microsoft Silverlight platform. \nGoogle Mashup tools\n\nGoogle decided on a different approach. Instead of launching an all-encompassing mashup making application, they've offered a multitude of tools - some, like Google Mashup Maker, aimed at developers, while others, like MyMaps, can be used by anyone. Their impressive collection of APIs can be found here, and while they don't give many options of mashup-creation to the layman, their openness has resulted in a huge number of great mashups based on their services. \nShould Google choose to make mashup-making easier, they could hurt a lot of sites. A good example is recently introduced Google MyMaps, which enables anyone to add data to Google Maps - it made dozens of map-related sites obsolete with one swift strike. \nIntel MashMaker\n\nMashMaker is also one of the applications that you cannot try out at the moment, simply because it has not launched yet. The company behind it is Intel - not really one you'd expect to launch Web 2.0 apps, but the playground is open for all, so why not? It has quite an interesting concept: it integrates with your browsing experience, enabling you to add data to it directly from your browser as you browse the web. MashMaker is supposed to go live very soon; in the meantime, check out the video presentation here.  \nIBM QEDWiki\n\nWith QEDWiki (QED stands for Quick and Easily Done), IBM took a Wiki framework and went the enterprise route, which means that this tool is aimed primarily at developers, with a two-level approach. First, users can create \"commands\" or \"widgets\", which are basically simple applications or chunks of code which can be used for a multitude of purposes. Then, these commands can be assembled into full-fledged applications, and the whole process should drastically shave off development time. \nThe level of expertise required to use QEDWiki is definitely higher than for Pipes or Popfly, but IBM claims that non-developers should be able to create simple mashups. Judging by the complexity of the documentation, users who aren't familiar with at least basic programming concepts need not apply. See a detailed video presentation of QEDWiki over at YouTube.\nTHE UNDERDOGS\nOf course, besides the big guns, there's a host of worthy competitors not backed by huge companies: Dapper, Teqlo, Proto, Data Mashups , and OpenKapow. In a way, these companies are underdogs only on paper; in reality, the users will definitely use the application which works best, as no amount of marketing can replace usability when it comes to services like this. \nDapper \n\nDapper is meant to be used by both developers and non-programmers to easily extract chunks of data (called Dapps) from any website, convert it to various formats (XML, RSS, iCal, Google Maps, etc.), and create applications out of them. Dapper achieves this through its own browser which recognizes key data on a website - for example, it will recognize output from a search form on a web site. It then analyzes the site and gives you the option of saving parts of it as fields which you can group and convert to any format, and you've got yourself a Dapp. All this works so well that Dapper can hold its own against all tools in this roundup, and judging from the number of applications created with it, it might even be a leader at this point. \nTeqlo \n\nTeqlo has a familiar Netvibes-like dashboard; function-wise, it's similar to Pipes, and perhaps even easier to use, but lacks some of the more advanced features; also, several errors we've received upon opening the site don't leave a great impression (the service is in beta, but isn't everything in beta these days?) Still, with its ready-made selection of widgets which you can connect into simple apps, Teqlo makes things incredibly easy, and thus it's great for users not familiar with programming. \nProto \n\nProto is a desktop application that lets you build custom applications very fast, but it requires far more knowledge to use than, for example, Yahoo! Pipes. The environment looks like a real developer's dashboard, but instead of having to code everything yourself, you have a large choice of ready-to-use components. Beware, in Proto you cannot simply drop one component on top of another and expect everything to work as you planned; this mashup maker is way too complex for that. However, it's also much more powerful than any of the other tools we've mentioned here, so if you're a real power user or a developer who looks for a quick &amp; simple solution for an application, Proto is the way to go. Check out a screencast with an overview of some of Proto's basic functions here. \nDataMashups \n\nDataMashups has a pragmatic approach: it lets you use a number of predefined applications (widgets) to create a personalized portals for your clients in a short period of time. There's no real mashup-making functionality here, as the widgets don't communicate with each other, but the idea behind this tool is not to create complex mashups, but to be able to quickly create a usable page for your clients. Unfortunately, relatively poor presentation ruins the impression; Data Mashups will also have a very serious competitor once the Netvibes Universe feature goes live for everyone, since it will offer similar functionality with a huge selection of modules. \nOpenKapow \n\nOpenKapow is the perfect application for those who think Dapper is too simple. It works with the concept of \"robots\" - you download a desktop application called Robomaker which is used to gather data from websites. While Dapper is good at recognizing important data chunks on sites, Robomaker takes this to the next level, allowing you to automate complex processes and simulate a real person's behavior in a web browser to retrieve the data you need. You can then create three different types of robots - RSS, REST or Web Clip robots, which enable you to either create RSS feeds, create an API out of a web site or simply collect one piece of functionality from a site and use it somewhere else. All this makes OpenKapow a good tool for serious mashup-making, which will probably mostly be used by professional developers to aid them in their work. \nA MASHABLE FUTURE?\nThis bunch of tools, although all created with a similar purpose - to help people create mashups - aren't really competing with each other. Instead, they're answering to a very wide variety of different needs; some of them, like Teqlo and Pipes, will be used by those who can't code at all (and probably don't plan to start, either), while others, like Proto and OpenKapow, are powerful tools which satisfy the needs of professional developers. The fact that some of them have very strong backing won't matter much, as each of them will probably get a following based solely on their quality, ease of use and feature set. The best among them will definitely contribute, by putting more power in the hands of the average user, to the ever-growing number of mashups on the web. It may not be a revolution just yet, as it still takes a decent amount of knowledge to create something really good, but it's a chance for more people than ever to make their ideas a reality with less cost and effort than ever before."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2007/07/08/mashups/>