Mashup MindsetMoving Mashups to Next Level

Tom ReamyChief Knowledge Architect

KAPS Group

Knowledge Architecture Professional Services

http://www.kapsgroup.com

2

Agenda

Introduction Mashups: Essential Features & Current State

– What’s new, what’s not

Mashups in Context: Creating Value– Content Aggregation, Facets, Business Value

Moving Mashups to the Next Level – Semantic Infrastructure and Complexity Theory

Conclusion

3

KAPS Group: General

Knowledge Architecture Professional Services Virtual Company: Network of consultants – 12-15

– Partners – Convera, Inxight, FAST, etc. Articles and Presentations: Knowledge Architecture, Taxonomy Boot

Camp, Enterprise Search, Complexity Theory, Intranets Consulting, Strategy, Knowledge architecture audit Taxonomies: Enterprise, Marketing, Insurance, etc. Services:

– Taxonomy development, consulting, customization– Technology Consulting – Search, CMS, Portals, etc.– Metadata standards and implementation– Knowledge Management: Collaboration, Expertise, e-learning– Information Architecture, Web Development

4

Essential Features of MashupsWhat is Mashup?

“A mashup is a website or application that uses content from more than one source to create a completely new service.”

Uses a public interface, RSS feed, or API. Original use was music – combining tracks from different

sets and artists. (Bastard Pop or Bootys) Example – CraigsList and Google Maps to create a

dynamic map of rentals by neighborhoods

5

Essential Features of Mashups

Simple API– Anyone can create one

Content from 2 or more sites– Issues of info quality, control

Current emphasis on presentation – visual maps– Simple 2 dimension maps

Content structure, data– Issues of compatibility– Every mashup a unique job

Self Service – embed variety of mashups

6

Current State of MashupsIs this a Revolution?

“Much the way blogs revolutionized online publishing, mashups are revolutionizing web development by allowing anyone to combine existing data from sources…in innovative ways.”

Focus on technology is misplaced– Structure and standards as important as API

Not another revolution! – Mapping data has been around a long time– Most Mashups are simple & limited value

7

Current State of MashupsIs this a Revolution?

It’s not a Mashup, it’s an integration of content.– Music – based on standard musical structures– Richer, standard structures allow art form integration

90% of Mashup examples use Google Maps.– Maps are based on a standard Taxonomy / Partonomy

Mashups need taxonomies and metadata.– Crime watch – map crime database with neighborhoods –

need geography taxonomy and crime database needs metadata that refers to same geographical units.

8

Current State of MashupsIs this a Revolution?

Talis Library Mashup Competition: Criteria– coolness

ease of useease of deploymentutilityportability/ relevance to other librariesoverall

Mashups are still in the realm of cool Irrational Exuberance!

– How to create more than cool mashups:• Mashups in Context

9

Mashups in ContextContent Aggregation

Using content from 2 or more sites = Content Aggregation Traditional content aggregation offers more than more

mashups Text mining, alerts, dynamic categorization Information not data Richer, semantic relationships Content from 100’s or 1,000’s of sites Mash ups are still largely about presentation

10

Mashups in ContextFaceted Navigation / Dynamic Classification Mashups are variant of Faceted navigation – dynamically

mapping two dimensions together. Facets are orthogonal dimensions of metadata attributes

– A place is not an event is not a person Facet structure can be range (price), alphabetical,

hierarchical (taxonomy) Faceted navigation is dynamic intersection of two or more

facets (map dimensions, filter search results) A terrorism taxonomy mapped to a geography partonomy =

a map of terrorist activities by region and range of activities within each region

11

Mashups in ContextQuestions of Value

Business of Mashups– E-commerce Sites – another mechanism for targeted

advertising

Mashups within the Enterprise– Combine Internet content with internal content

Mashups and Library– Talis Competition – open up Library content to variety of users– Maps of libraries– “Map” of library catalog?– Amazon Library Service

12

Platform for MashupsIntegrated Semantic Solutions

Integrated: To move beyond individual mashups to a platform for integration of variety of dynamic sources

Semantics: Taxonomy, metadata, controlled vocabularies, Personas, Facets, Natural Categories

Semantic Infrastructure - allows the meaningful integration of content with a minimal technological element (XML)

– Deeper integration – knowledge, not just data– Combination of technology (API’s) and semantics

Platform to add unstructured content to Mashups

13

Taxonomies, Metadata, and Mashups

Taxonomies are an Infrastructure Resource– Search and Browse

• Categorization & related content

– Text mining, Alerts, Competitor Intelligence– And Mashups

Metadata – Mashups based on metadata – content structure

– Need Taxonomy and Standards – generalize Mashups – Standard format – People, companies, events

14

Mashups and Standards

Geography is early application because there are existing standards and/or easy to develop

Need other standard or easy to map content structures– To allow more than two content sources– To allow exchange of more meaningful information

Facets are relatively easy to develop – Dimensions – Location, people, companies, jobs, rental

properties, events (crime to festivals)

Publish Content structures and format rules, not just API

15

Mashups and Ontologies

Ontology – model of the relationships of a dimension – example a business

Develop rules to govern interactions of content sources Example of Maps, People (LinkIn), Payscales, Location Next – build in some intelligence – know how much VP in

industry X usually makes – flag any that are higher than average?

IBM – “Ultimate mashup” – creating a mashup application with intelligence – users can add and remove web services

– System can use semantic reasoning to understand services and their relationships (RDF and OWL)

16

Mashups and FolksonomiesEvolving “standard” taxonomies

Wikipedia: A folksonomy is an Internet-based information retrieval methodology consisting of collaboratively generated, open-ended labels that categorize content such as Web pages, online photographs, and Web links.

A folksonomy is most notably contrasted from a taxonomy – done by users, not professionals,

Example sites – Del.icio.us and Flickr (not really – no feedback)

It is just metadata that users add Key – social mechanism for seeing other tags

17

Advantages of Folksonomies

Simple (no complex structure to learn) Lower cost of categorization Open ended – can respond quickly to changes Quality – “compare favorably with professional”? Relevance – SME generated, close to content Aboutness – qualitative judgments Multiple dimensions – “communities” of like minded taggers Better than no tags at all

18

Disadvantages of Folksonomies

They don’t work very well – polysemy, synonyms, etc. Compare favorably with no tags, not controlled vocabularies No structure, no conceptual relationships

– Flats lists do not a onomy make

Jargon – SME’s talking to themselves or each other SME’s are not info professional – different skill Based on popularity only, no quality control Wikipedia article – very shallow, “wrong”? – not a taxonomy at all Fatal flaw – how improve tags – none of the schemes work

– (and then a miracle – users care about tags)

19

Complexity Theory (abridged)History

An interdisciplinary method– Applied to math, model systems, economics, ecology, etc.

Initial Hype Period – 1980’s-1990’s– Chaos theory, Catastrophe theory, AI, etc.

Current – half way between hype and practical– Beware articles that focus on one aspect – self-organizing

Santa Fe Institute, social research The Center for Complex Systems Research

20

Complexity Theory (abridged)Examples Complex Systems (not complicated)

– Large number of independent relatively dumb elements interact according to a small set of rules.

– Self-organizing – Local rules, local interactions – global order emerges

Definition by Example– Ant Colonies – clear tunnels with no idea of how to clear a tunnel– Neighborhoods – create a structure with no central planning

Complexity – need right level of structure and disorder No evolution without:

– Initial complex structure– Evolutionary mechanisms – feedback with consequences

21

Complexity Theory and Folksonomies Evolutionary Mechanisms

Initial structures – folksonomies, Tag Clouds Rules and evolutionary mechanisms

– Feedback with consequences – you die– Define success within and for a category – more than

popularity

Rank everything – content & categories, taggers and categorizers

Software – reverse relevance, auto taxonomy Social Community – focus like Wikipedia, multiple roles

22

Mashups and EvolutionMashups, Feedback, and Evolution

Social Features – easy to build– Large numbers with evolutionary mechanisms

Evolve better structures– Standard taxonomies– Process of refining taxonomies / folksonomies

Evolve better mashups– Feedback about quality of mashups– Embed feedback into mashup – evolve higher life form

Talis Library mashup competition– Also community to provide ongoing ranking– Need a Del.icio.us for Mashups

23

Summary

Mashups – dynamic content from 2 or more sources Need simple API – enables social collaboration Use & build on content aggregation & faceted navigation Need content structure – metadata, standard taxonomies,

ontologies If not available – evolve folksonomies into standard

taxonomies – feedback and power of social networks (WIKI)

Same mechanism can evolve better mashups

24

Conclusions

Mashups are not mashed up.– Could we have a new name? Unlikely.

Mashups are not revolutionary, they are evolutionary– Ease of development can be positive and negative– Evolution is one way to accentuate the positive.

Mashups can be useful– Need semantic infrastructure.– Emphasis on structure, metadata, standards

Infrastructure is cool! No Really.

Questions?

Tom Reamytomr@kapsgroup.com

KAPS Group

Knowledge Architecture Professional Services

http://www.kapsgroup.com