Data Mashups are web applications that aggregate and reuse data from multiple data sources into one presentation module. The pulling together of all these data sources into a single web enabled application provides users with a richer visual data set.
The data sources behind these mashups are typically provided free of charge by government agencies and organisations. This data is accessed by passing in a set of parameters to an API. Providers of this kind of data include Google, Amazon, Flickr and ebay.
An example of a possible application may be an insurance mashup. For example, an insurance company may develop a data mashup showing map data from the Google Maps API, along with historic weather data from a weather agency, together with it’s historical claims data. What does it end up with? An interesting application showing claims over a predefined period based on historic weather patterns for a specific area. And how is this useful? Well, consider the scenario where premium rates need to be set for the forthcoming year. Based on this mashup, acutaries can examine historic data for specific areas, visualise historic trends, and make a call on where rates should go.
This is a fairly recent development in the Business Intelligence area, making good use of Web 2.0 enabled technology.