Mashups that matter

Have you found yourself reviewing mashups - then thinking - why is this relevent? Or even - What the Heck Is a MashUp and Why Do I Care?

Don't get me wrong - having a website that show me where free WiFi locations are, or even where I can find a parking spot at the airport (Not that I ever am rushing to the airport...) actually do make sense if they have relevent content and people are really using these tools...I really like WeatherBonk and SkiBonk - two mashups that are functional, easy to use and have useful content.

But...

Lately it seems that people are mashing the open APIs available via Google, Yahoo some pretty odd topic/search indexes...Oatmeal Music for iPhone is a cool site with a very eclectic collection of sites to pull from. I wish I had gophernow when I was in college and needed to eat late at night (can we still say munchies?)

Or even LivePlasma -a visually rich application that combines the Amazon API to show the relationship between movies, bands, actors, etc. You can go straight from interacting to making purchases. Is "MashCommerce" a word yet?

I will continue to monitor these mash up conglomerates to find some that really matter - to me of course...

One that has kept me intrigued lately is TravelGoop which mashes Priceline and Hotwire discounted hotel rates on one site. Simply put in the city your are traveling too and press "Search" and rates are returned for that destination - pretty cool - now if they can show me a competitive opaque listing for 5* hotels in the city center for under $90 bucks - I am ready for the weekend.

Stay tuned....