Scenario 3: Ever Evolving Mashups?

In 2006, due to the success of the first mashup camp in Silicon Valley, a second camp will be introduced in the second half of the year, allowing people from all over the world to acquire more information, meet people with similar interests, and allow the exchange of information to take place. These camps along with mashup websites and forums will introduce new ways to create and integrate mashups.

2007 to 2012, mashup camps advance out of America and are set up throughout Europe, combining the knowledge of different cultures, also introducing fresh ideas and new ways of introducing the application.

Although the promotion of mashups will develop, this application will still remain limited for the fun producers (create mashups for personal achievement, mainly technical savvies), the reason for this will be due the majority of company and private information required to develop mashups, remaining protected by government restrictions as well as copyright and privacy laws. Due to mashups moving into other countries, different governmental rules will apply, making mashup producing in some countries easier than others, with more information being available.

However there will be a steady increase in the amount of industry mashup providers investigating and developing this new marketing application for companies. These new applications will combine services with a potential to increase profit, with companies such as Google and Microsoft setting the standards.

Also in this period of time, the amount of companies involved in a single mashup will increase, as more and more companies want to be associated with the major players. At present, mashups involve up to eight mashed companies. An example of a mashup of four companies is Celebsoup - Amazon, Wikipedia, Yahoo and Ebay.

The interest from the majority of companies will be slow due to the wariness of exposing their competences, which in turn could possibly make them vulnerable, and an easy target for their competition, see Scenario 2: Mashup Misuse. There will be some companies, mainly entrepreneurial, that will take a risk and claim the ‘first mover advantage’, and other companies within the same industry will see the advantages and follow their lead. This interest will also allow companies such as Google to expand their mashup applications and become a standard symbol or trademark on a majority of company websites, for example, more companies combining their own products and services with Google Maps.

The amount of API’s available will also prohibit the quick take-off of the mashup development, although the API service providers will certainly be looking into ways to increase the amount of API’s and in turn, promote where possible, mainly towards the industry mashup providers.

From 2012, due to America obtaining the rights over the European Union to know exactly who are entering/leaving America, and all their personal details being available to the customs and governmental departments, more governmental laws with regards to privacy and copyright will be introduced, and in turn people and companies will become even more security aware. Due to this increase in security, the penalties for hacking and disobeying copyright laws will also increase, as more information will become prohibited.

Fun producers will become something of the past, as the stakes are too high due to the increase in penalties, and the amount of legal information will become limited.

Existing mashups will still be making a profit, but the amount of new mashups being introduced will decrease, as the industry mashup producers will increase the cost of producing due to the market becoming more or a specialised or niche.

This limiting effect will also have a negative result on API producers, as due to the increase of mashups from 2007 to 2012, more applications were introduced into the market, which is now flooded, giving the industry producers an increased bargaining power.

The future of mashups will go from being an interesting application that gives the technology world a challenge, to becoming something of a tool for up and coming and more exciting technology.