Mashup

In the arena of business intelligence and data analytics, a Mashup is about creatively combining different sets of data or services to create a new, more useful piece of software. It’s like taking ingredients from different recipes and mixing them together to make a new, delicious dish. Technically, a mashup integrates data, presentations, or functionality from two or more sources to create new services. The goal is to take existing information from various places and blend it together in a way that provides more value than the individual parts alone.

For example, a real estate mashup might take property listings from one database and lay them over maps from a mapping service to create an interactive map that shows homes for sale with detailed geographic information. In business, these mashups are often used in dashboards and data visualization tools to give executives and managers a more comprehensive view of the company’s performance by combining financial data, customer feedback, and operational metrics all in one place.

Mashups can help businesses make more informed decisions by providing a richer, fuller picture of the situation at hand. They’re a form of digital alchemy, turning separate, often unrelated sources of data into a coherent and interactive tool that can reveal deeper insights, trends, and patterns that might not be visible when looking at single-source data.