Google Maps and mashups from Web 2.0 Conference

O'Reilly's Web 2.0 Conference is happening this week. It started yesterday and runs until tomorrow. Here are some random blog-bits about the conference..

With "mashups" being a major theme at the conference there are some interesting workshops which have covered this topic, as well as interesting thoughts and discussion out on the blogosphere resulting from these workshops. Many of these blog posts have been blogged directly from the conference itself. Mashups, are of course, integrations between data sources and various API's out on the web (like Google Maps). This blog tracks "Google Maps mashups".

Here is an interesting workshop from the conference that took place yesterday:

Mash-ups 2.0: Where's the Business Model? - So you built a mashup, it's super-cool, and it just got slashdotted -- but will it ever pay the rent?

SimplyHired.com's Dave McClure presented a number of Google Maps mashups (including Google Maps Mania!) in his session according to Web 2.0 attendee Paul Miller. His blog post outlines how the workshop progressed. Here are his closing comments from that post:

"So there are lots of mashups, and many of them are great. But (still) no real answer as to how anyone might generate sustaining revenue from them. Maybe there is no money to be made directly from your mashups. Maybe they're part of offering a sticky and rich experience, and essentially an ongoing cost?" (more..)

The Silkworm blog has posted an interesting Q&A from HousingMaps.com-turned-Google-employee Paul Rademacher from the session:

Question: why didn't you stay entrepreneurial and develop site further rather than joining Google? Paul: how can you compete in the vertical when you don't own the data.

The Google Maps theme was detected by the O'Reilly Radar blog as well:

I'm at the Launch Pad: A Dozen New Companies in One Sitting workshop at Web 2.0, and more than half of the companies have presented. I could have missed one, but I think every single one has demo'd Google Maps integration.

There are a few of these "LaunchPad" mashups that were launched yesterday:

RealTravel.com
Zvents.com
..Check them out. Both include tight Google Maps integration. [via]

To stay in touch with what all the bloggers attending this conference are saying, be sure to monitor the Technorati tag for it..


Technorati Tags: [googlemaps], [web2con]