How to build a good mashup/podcast
–Bin Chang
In the context of web 2.0, I would like to compare mashup, podcast with blog. In all these three web 2.0 applications, users are not only audiences any more. They participate in the process of content creation. In mashup, people move forward. They have chance to focus on the technical part. The following criterion may help us to build a good mashup/podcast.
1. A creative idea. In my opinion, this is the most important criteria. You should be the genius one who find the gap between existed applications and people’s requirement and construct a mashup to overcome the gap. For example, Wikipedia referenced a mapping mashup, Chicago Crime (http://chicago.everyblock.com/crime/). On one hand, we have a bunch of online mapping services, and on the other hand, we have criminal record. And Chicago Crime is the bridge to connect these two data set together. And this topic can gain enough eyeballs. Bingo, this is such a creative idea, so this mashup has the potential to be a good mashup.
2. A perfect user interface. A good user interface introduces good user experience and helps you to build up your user community. A good user interface must be easy to use. Users do not need to spend much time on help page to learn how to use. Otherwise, a lot of people will give up because of the steep learning curve. A good user interface also needs to make users feel enjoyable. (Here we are talking about the theme and style of your mashup, this is a art issue rather than a technical issue. It depends on what type of audience your mashup/podcast have.)
3. Short request-response time. Even though these are thin client applications nested in web browsers, users still care very much about the response time.
4. Keep the content up to date. That motivates people to visit your site repeatedly.
5. Promote your site. To build a good mashup/podcast, you should know how to promote your site. The number of users and page views are very important metrics to evaluate the popularity of a site.
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