Mashup Washup
Monday, February 27, 2006
Mashup's are the flavor of the season. It demostrates the power of a well designed API and how Web 2.0 concept is creating layers of services centered around them. There are lots of useful as well as just for fun mashups. And they are very creative as well.
Also, yesterday I finally managed to get on Orkut (thanks to Hombal) and here's the link to my profile (u have to be on orkut to be able see it). Generally all the Google applications are pretty slick. But Orkut is the exception. Its simple and fairly easy to use, but looks very dull. To the point that it seems that they are averse to bright colors and trendy looks. And it does not have any AJAX!
The membership of Orkut is phenomenal. I have been looking to network with techies in Bangalore and I found at least 10 groups where I could post a message. There are groups on everything there, even one devoted to sex in Bangalore! Even more surprising was the number of desis in each group. I was not expecting that. Most of them are there for social networking and Orkut is providing the platform due to the lack of good India based dating websites. The ones that are there are too costly and have very few babes on them.
So I have devised a plan to conquer the MySpace domination. Assume that every single guy and girl has a GMail account. So create a mashup which uses GMail for mail services, Google Pages for profiles, flickr for photo storage, Gtalk for messenger and Google Base for indexing. First ask the person to send a google invite to himself and create a new account with a nickname. Then use a predefined set of questions, the same ones that are asked everywhere, to generate a profile page on google pages. If you have a photo the upload it to flickr and tag it. If not (most of the Indian Babes do not have a soft copy) then use the Yahoo Avatar instead. Make an index entry in google base and maintain a MySQL database to link the profile and the pic.
Provide search services. Since all the profiles already are indexed in google base, use the API. Use the MySQL database to connect the profile with the photo. And then use the gmail API to provide mail service. Since GMail already has messenger, it will provide instant messaging as well. A single website can serve this all up using the Google and Flickr API.
To generate revenue, again use Google AdSense to attach a simple text ad to the end of each message sent. Also display the text ads when the user searches. Provide some premium services which any average user will not require. Provide a blogging service as well. Load up your website with AJAX and pick a cool name (eg. ishkvishk, love86, love.google.com etc.). Do some advertising and voila, you have the MySpace killer!
Now I got to run and get some VC funding on this. This is definately better than Yatra!
Update 1: Tech Crunch informs us that Google Base can support payment systems now!
Update 2: Two back to back news items on My Space in Wired.
Update 3: Rights Of Mashosphere.
Update 4: The SourceForge project is almost up! Pls. do contribute.
Tags: Mashup Web2.0 Social Networking Google GMail Flickr Google Base Orkut My Space
Also, yesterday I finally managed to get on Orkut (thanks to Hombal) and here's the link to my profile (u have to be on orkut to be able see it). Generally all the Google applications are pretty slick. But Orkut is the exception. Its simple and fairly easy to use, but looks very dull. To the point that it seems that they are averse to bright colors and trendy looks. And it does not have any AJAX!
The membership of Orkut is phenomenal. I have been looking to network with techies in Bangalore and I found at least 10 groups where I could post a message. There are groups on everything there, even one devoted to sex in Bangalore! Even more surprising was the number of desis in each group. I was not expecting that. Most of them are there for social networking and Orkut is providing the platform due to the lack of good India based dating websites. The ones that are there are too costly and have very few babes on them.
So I have devised a plan to conquer the MySpace domination. Assume that every single guy and girl has a GMail account. So create a mashup which uses GMail for mail services, Google Pages for profiles, flickr for photo storage, Gtalk for messenger and Google Base for indexing. First ask the person to send a google invite to himself and create a new account with a nickname. Then use a predefined set of questions, the same ones that are asked everywhere, to generate a profile page on google pages. If you have a photo the upload it to flickr and tag it. If not (most of the Indian Babes do not have a soft copy) then use the Yahoo Avatar instead. Make an index entry in google base and maintain a MySQL database to link the profile and the pic.
Provide search services. Since all the profiles already are indexed in google base, use the API. Use the MySQL database to connect the profile with the photo. And then use the gmail API to provide mail service. Since GMail already has messenger, it will provide instant messaging as well. A single website can serve this all up using the Google and Flickr API.
To generate revenue, again use Google AdSense to attach a simple text ad to the end of each message sent. Also display the text ads when the user searches. Provide some premium services which any average user will not require. Provide a blogging service as well. Load up your website with AJAX and pick a cool name (eg. ishkvishk, love86, love.google.com etc.). Do some advertising and voila, you have the MySpace killer!
Now I got to run and get some VC funding on this. This is definately better than Yatra!
Update 1: Tech Crunch informs us that Google Base can support payment systems now!
Update 2: Two back to back news items on My Space in Wired.
Update 3: Rights Of Mashosphere.
Update 4: The SourceForge project is almost up! Pls. do contribute.
Tags: Mashup Web2.0 Social Networking Google GMail Flickr Google Base Orkut My Space
12 Comments:
Said 
Anonymous, 4:21 PM
Anonymous, 4:21 PM
Thanks for the interest. Not planning to do it right away since i'm working on something else. Lets see.
pls. do leave your mail id .
Rajiv
So it will be webservices based? I mean are those services needed to build what u said, exposed to the user?
could work it out...
I think the avtaars instead of photos idea is cool!!
Great idea! I like the way your mind works. :-)
One of the most stupid ideas I ever heard!
Thanks for the bouquets and brickbats. The update is that one of my friends has voluntered to do some pro bono work and come up with a prototype. So things are happening.
If you wanna be a part of it, drop me a line.
Thanks,
Rajiv.
Why not add a portal, news, rss feeds, discussion forums, faq, trouble ticket system, a blog system and a wiki to it while you are at it? I'll give you a name idea: call it "everyfkingtechnology.web2.com"
Dude ... this shd work .... give it a try .. need a hand?
sssss
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