What are Mashups?

A mashup is like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. You start with three things:

When you put them all together you get something new:

Basically mashups are hybrid programs that take features from one application and "mash them together" with features from another program. For example if you mash Flickr and a map together you get Mappr

Many people have made mashups for the internet by putting together Flickr images and APIs (application programming interfaces) they have created. Many of these are available for general use.

Since most of us don’t have the time or the artistic talent to create specialized graphics or logos for projects we can appreciate the special type of mashups known as  Online Image Generators! These handy-dandy tools let you create many types of images – framed pictures, slide shows, comic-style captions, trading cards, calendars, and much more. The image above was created by ImageChef.

What can you do with this tool?

• Create trading cards of authors, scientists, historical figures, or even concepts you’re trying to teach or promote.

• Help students create images around astronomy, algebraic equations, or historical figures (“I’ll trade you two Ben Franklins for an Eleanor Roosevelt!”). 

• Create trading cards of themselves to help them get to know each other. creating a calendar with an image related to what you’re promoting that month

• Create mosaics with multiple images related to your books, videos, or other resources.

• Use the images generators in summer reading programs, book clubs, training, and more.

Graphics are a great way to convey information and can add some fun and creativity to your websites. Librarians at Carleton College are using trading cards as a way to reach their students. The possibilities are endless! As is the time you can spend playing around with these sites—beware!

Try this:

1. Go to Big Huge Labs and choose Trading Card from the drop down list.

2. Create a trading card and save it to your computer.

3. Create another image or two to illustrate your professional activities.

4. Upload the your trading card and images to your blog to share with others.

And what about copyright? This is an opportunity to think about copyright and licensing issues–some image generators use characters from popular TV shows (The Simpsons, South Park, etc.)–is this legal or part of the Internet free-for-all?