The Argument for Openness

引用

Apress.Practical.REST.on.Rails.2.Projects.Apr.2008.pdf

The most important assumption underlying this book is that it is a good thing to take part in
this open, Web 2.0 world. Many people might challenge that assumption; sometimes, these
are the proprietors of data that sits in silos, who limit access to it by charging a fee or requiring
membership in an exclusive club. Much of the time, however, these are people who just
haven’t realized the benefits that openness provides.
The best counterargument to this isolationism is to point to the dramatic successes of
sites that have fully joined the new Internet and to recognize the benefits that openness
makes possible.
Google Maps, del.icio.us, Flickr, Twitter—all owe a large portion of their success to their
willingness to open up their data to clients built by interested Internet users from around the
globe. Each of them exposes an API to the world, inviting others to use the site as a service,
pulling the site’s data as needed. This openness has resulted in new phenomena: the growth of
community outsourcing and the discovery of novel uses of the data—uses that the providers
of the original site would never have anticipated.

MASHUP INSPIRATION

If you still doubt the creativity of developers outside of your project team, take a look at the following sites—
all of which were developed on top of open applications.
• HousingMaps (http://www.housingmaps.com/): The grandfather of all Google Maps mashups.
• Amazon Light (http://www.kokogiak.com/amazon4/): An alternative interface to Amazon, incorporating
a number of open APIs (including del.icio.us).
ChicagoCrime (http://www.chicagocrime.org/): —A site that lets you track the location of
recently reported crimes across Chicago.
Ficlets (http://ficlets.com/): A collaborative creative writing site based around OpenID, AIM, and
Flickr.
Flickrvision (http://flickrvision.com/): A site that lets you view photos from Flickr plotted on a
world map.
Musiclovr (http://www.musiclovr.com/): A music discovery site combining Amazon, Flickr, Technorati,
and other services.
Popurls (http://popurls.com/): A site that aggregates information from several services to give a
sense for the current state of the Web.
Twittervision (http://twittervision.com/): A site that’s similar to Flickrvision, plotting recent
posts to Twitter on a world map.
Wikimapia (http://www.wikimapia.org/): A site that combines Wikipedia with Google Maps, providing
information about almost any place on Earth.