Few developments in the world of computers have been embraced as quickly as mashups. The most common mashups remain those that build on the various mapping APIs, but dynamic combinations of data from multiple sources or in multiple formats (the basic definition of a mashup) are all over the Web. Part I of this book provides an introduction to the world of mashups. Mashups require you to know a little bit about a number of Web technologies, and that is what you will find in Part II. Long books have been written about each of the technologies described in the chapters of Part II, but what you will find here is guidance about the specific parts of those technologies you are likely to use. In Part III, the technologies are put together to build mashups. The first chapter of this part of the book introduces the basic steps common to building all mashups in the book. Then, you will find pairs of chapters: the first introduces a specific API (eBay, Google Maps, Flickr, and so forth), and the second builds on the technologies of Part II and the specific API to create a mashup.

The code described in most chapters is available on the author’s Web site (www.northcountryconsulting.com—the Downloads link is at the right of the page, just beneath the bio), as well as on the McGraw-Hill Web site (www.mhprofessional.com, or more precisely, http://www.mhprofessional.com/product.php?isbn=0071496270). The downloadable code is in self-extracting ZIP archives and is organized by chapter. Because the examples are built from chapter to chapter, make certain that you are using the right chapter’s code: the mashup from one chapter will have only a fraction of the code as the same mashup in a later chapter. Note that most of the mashup code requires you to register to use the API involved. (This is described in the book.) The code that you download will not run until you replace placeholders such as myAccountName with your actual account name.