Mashups and the new brand paradigm
David Berlind and Dan Farber of Between the Lines deliver a consistent stream of deep insights and analysis on technology innovation. Here’s a clip from David’s recent assessment of explosive innovation in mashups:
Finally, why might this ecosystem snowball the way none before it has (not to say that the ones before it haven’t been unbelievably successful)? Because, with mashups, fewer technical skills are needed to become a developer than ever. Not only that, the simplest ones can be done in 10 or 15 minutes. Before, you had to be a pretty decent code jockey with languages like C++ or Visual Basic to turn your creativity into innovation. With mashups, much the same way blogging systems put Web publishing into the hands of millions of ordinary non-technical people, the barrier to developing applications and turning creativity into innovation is so low that there’s a vacuum into which an entire new class of developers will be sucked. It’s already happening.
Mashups and brands both unlock value. It’s not clear yet how the two will dance, but dance they will. Brand mashups may not be far off.