Pro Web 2.0 Mashups: Remixing Data and Web Services

At first glance the author is a little verbose for my taste. However, the examples were easy to jump in to and start learning. I picked this book up because I wanted to get some experience with web services. The instruction and examples cover the topics breadth and depth areas very effectively, including SOAP, REST, XML-RPC, etc. I have to agree with an earlier post that even though I am not interested in utilizing Flickr services any time soon, it is a very good example. Also for learning purposes it is helpful to continue the discussion along a continuous thread thought. I would recommend this book to any one with at least a moderate level of web programming experience who is interested extending their applications.

An excellent, up-to-date (2008) book on mashups including: a workmanlike overview of the components with real exercises, details of the services, list of leading websites supporting mashups with specific interactions/examples of several, resource links, etc. A common thread through the book is using Flickr services, which makes sense as a learning exercise -- theirs is a widely used and robust set of features and services. While I could actually care less about interacting with Flickr, it was a good learning tool, and if by chance you do want to use Flickr in your mashups, then order the book right now. One point, though, is that while the author tries to speak to all levels of web developer, that doesn't succeed so well -- the topic is really pretty advanced for beginners. Though anyone can glean useful knowledge, this is really a book for mid-level and above developers. If your exposure to websites is limited to Photoshop and Dreamweaver, this is probably not the best book for you. I use (mostly) PHP now (formerly Java and before that C++ and before that you don't want to know), and there were a lot of PHP-specifics (though not exclusive), which I appreciated. The scattered resource links were invaluable. I tend to be submerged in my own field, and don't have the time to keep up with every trend, and this book pointed out several sites/tools that are apparently widely known and used, but with which I was unfamiliar. Excellent job.

Kudos to the author and publisher for this release. This book is a tour de force of the subject of Mashups. I was looking for a good book on this subject so that I could introduce it to students as part of an extra-curricular technology program in NYC and this book is perfect. In a sentence, Mashups are created by taking data from one or more sources and making something new and useful from them. In my opinion, the subject is very important because there is a vast amount of data that is available now. Today the challenge is not just finding data but putting to use. This book shows you how to do that. The author's writing style is excellent, mixing theory and applications. The book is filled with hands on examples as well as references for research in each of the areas. I believe that this book can be read by anyone interested in the subject, regardless of their technical background. For those that want to create Mashups without programming, this book shows you how. For those that want to delve into programming, everything that you need is covered including AJAX, PHP, various data formats and how to parse them, various Javascript libraries and more. The book is laid out in four parts: 1. Remixing Information Without Programming As the title suggests, the chapters in this section require no previous programming experience. The author walks through some specific examples, introduces terminology and analyzes how sites like Flickr and del.icio.us work so that you can get the most out of them. Tools such as Yahoo! Pipes (a browser-based visual application for Mashups and Remixing) are explored. Following along with the discussion the reader can put together a Mashup or Remix by simply understanding the concepts and using tools, but not having to delve into coding. 2. Remixing a Single Web Application Using Its API For the person who wants to code, this part of the book jumps right in discussing the Flickr API, PHP usage, XML processing and more. From there the discussion moves to other APIs and using AJAX/Javascript widgets. 3. Making Mashups This section starts by delving into the ProgrammableWeb website. Showing how to find what resources are available, studying existing Mashups via which APIs they use and how to go about creating new ones. From there XMLHttpRequest and Javascript libraries such as YUI are covered and a step-by-step example is given using the previously discussed techniques. Lastly, the author addresses issues around implementing Mashups on your site including standards, accessibility and your own API. I was glad to see these topics covered as sometimes in the haste of getting something online, they can be overlooked. 4. Exploring Other Mashup Topics This final section of the book covers a large range of interesting topics such as Map-based Mashups, Social Bookmarking, Calendars, Online Storage, Desktop and Office Suites, Embeddable Data Formats and Searches. As you can see, there's a lot of information covered in t

This is the type of book that you can either skim and get ideas from or sit down at a computer and work through all of the examples. The material is presented clearly and thoroughly illustrates different types of mashups. The book discusses how to use Yahoo Pipes and Google Mashup Editor, their respective map API's along with manipulating Flickr properties and API's. Integrating feeds and blogs into mashups are also described. Though not required, a reader would understand more of the book with some background in languages like javascript, php, and of course xml/html.