mashups

The first mashup site that i have found useful is called musicloacted.com. It is a website that uses google maps to let users search their area for other musicians who want to play music, music venues looking for musicians, or practice spaces available for musicians. It also uses youtube API to connect the user with another musician's videos that they may have posted on youtube to display their style of playing. This is valuable to me, since i am also a musician who struggles to find others who live nearby to play music with.

A second mashup i like is LastTube (http://flex2colombia.wordpress.com/lasttube-lastfm-meets-youtube/), which combines last.fm and youtube. It basically links up the music you have scrobbled on your last.fm account with youtube videos of the artists you listen to the most. I like this because i have recently been using last.fm a lot and have been discovering tons of new artists i would have never heard of otherwise. The problem is that all i can do is listen to the songs they have on last.fm, when i would also like to see videos of them performing, so this mashup is very helpful in my search to find new music.

A third mashup that i have found useful is BicyclePortal(http://veloroutes.org/), which uses google maps technology to let users enter in bike routes. they can specify the distance of the route, the elevation/topography of the route, and even show traffic photos of the route. This is pparticularly useful to me since my only mode of transportation is a bicycle. I am constantly disappointed when an event happens in a far away part of the city that i know is particularly hilly because i don't know of a flat bike route to get to that location. by using this helpful mashup, i can now easily find a route to get me to a certain area with much less effort.