Archive notice: This article was originally published on June 14, 2008. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
Mashups are typical representatives of Web 2.0: websites that combine data from different Internet services such as Google Maps or YouTube to create new applications. This book is a practical guide featuring five detailed and carefully described PHP projects. Each project begins with an overview of the technologies used and guides you directly toward implementing the mashup with the appropriate tools. The relevant fundamentals are covered first.
Overview of topics:
- Expanding your own website with mashups
- Requirements and fundamentals of mashup development
- Using PHP as a key technology for connecting websites
- Using SOAP, WSDL and SPARQL
- Practical examples with JSON and AJAX
- Creating queries in XML-RPC
And the complex examples in detail:
Shopping at Amazon:
Here you create a simple online shop where visitors can order products from Amazon by entering the UPC. Along the way, you learn about XML-RPC and REST, two important technologies for working with XML data formats.
Your own search engine:
Instead of puzzling over complex search algorithms, you can use APIs from services such as MSN Search and Yahoo! to assemble your own metasearch engine. The focus here is SOAP as an XML-based web-service protocol.
Video jukebox with YouTube and Last.fm:
Last.fm users have posted thousands of playlists there. This mashup shows how to use XSPF, RSS and PEAR to find suitable YouTube videos for songs in Last.fm playlists.
Traffic reports by SMS:
What expensive navigation systems have built in can also be created using PHP’s DOM extensions. The example explains how to retrieve police traffic-accident data, prepare it for mobile phones via the 411sync.com API and send it by SMS.
Flickr photos in Google Maps:
Take Google Maps, geodata for London Underground stations and suitable images from Flickr, and use them to create an exceptional interactive illustrated Underground map. Given the variety of data formats involved (XML, RDF, JSON), this is no trivial task, but it can be solved effectively with JavaScript, SPARQL and PHP.
You do need the appropriate expertise to follow the author through the development of the mashups. In any event, however, the book shows interested readers ways to use freely available APIs on the Internet effectively. The technologies, data formats and protocols used in connection with these web services and APIs, as well as some of the PHP tools required, are presented and demonstrated clearly and thoughtfully.
Web 2.0—Intelligently Connecting Websites
Shu-Wai Chow
Publisher: Franzis
311 pages, CD
ISBN: 978-3-7723-7905-5
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