Mashup applications have been getting a lot of attention for their ability to combine various services in an ad hoc manner, using tools like asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX) to stitch together services. For instance, a real-estate mashup can take property listings from one Web service, link it with satellite photos and digital maps from another, and add search capabilities as well as perhaps photos of the route to the property and driving directions. Corporate mashups are coming. And, no surprise, Microsoft is maneuvering to be a player. Last March Ray Ozzie stunned the open source world when he demonstrated a "Live Clipboard" for the Web -- a Windows Clipboard -- like tool that would let users cut and paste from the Web, including links to live data encapsulated in microformats. It's a way to create mashups with a user-friendly, point-and-click interface. Users or developers can create compound applications simply by cutting and pasting together various components.
