Data Integration Part I : Beyond Cutesy Mashups

Ever since we started doing relational joins, we've looked for ways to tie data together. When all we had were databases, our integration strategies were simple. The web has given us no end of new data sources to integrate but the strategies to do so are less clear. Where we can glue data together, it seems like the best we can come up with is locating Starbucks stores on Google Maps.

We want control of our data and our mashup results. We want ever more ways to view, explore and requery them in multi-faceted ways. We want data processing to be as simple as word processing has become. We want our data integration strategies to be less Vanilla Ice "Ice-Ice Baby" and more Nine Inch Nails "The Hand that Feeds" with the fluidity of a Phish tease (trust me, it makes sense).

In this first talk, we will describe the data integration landscape as we see it now and where it is likely to be in the near future. We will discuss the benefits and deficiencies of XML and Service-Oriented Architectures in this space as well as look at things like JSON, RSS and RDF. This part of the talk will be more conceptual and should be accessible to geeks and non-geeks alike.