THE DREAM IN ACTION

A few days ago, the San Diego based Mashable writer, Jenn VanGrove, wrote a post comparing and contrasting Last.fm and Slacker.com, 2 popular music streaming sites. I commented and I also subscribed to the comment feed so I could follow the conversation. I usually don’t, but wanted to see what people had to say.

It was interesting to hear people go back and forth comparing feature sets and usability issues. Then a certain comment caught my eye. Someone shared a Last.fm and Slacker.com mashup called lastSlacker. It takes much of the social benefits of Last.fm and works in the more mainstream music of Slacker. Very interesting.

Mashups like this are what make the new web so cool, so flexible, and give it so much potential. API‘s which allow one  application to share the data of another application are creating infinite possibilities. Not all but some of these possibilities are providing huge value to the consumer. Why pick and chose between applications, use both, easily with a slick interface!

This goes right along with my huge support for platform transparency. This means that the user stops worrying about what services they are using and starts focusing on the service they are receiving. In this case, the user will be more concerned with the music they are listening to and not the whether they are using Last.fm or Slacker.

In another example, people will stop worrying about using Twitter, Identi.ca, Yammer, or Facebook status updates, they will just  update there message and all/any service they’ve hooked up will be populated. Their friends will be updated and the value will be received without the distraction of, what service should I use? This is the new web, service vs. services.