Searchcube, a project of Symmetri that built on Google AJAX Search API, now has options to create an unique, three-dimensional cube interface of your search results that fetched from Google. Each time you enter a query, and the search results to be shown are add up to thirty-two (32) results per cube, and since it renders a three-dimension cube interface, the maximum total number of results return is ninety-six (96) results.

Searchcube’s primary aim for users is search in graphical format, and the results show up on the Web browser is in a visually attractive, and appealing 3D fashion. The search results rendered is a mashup from several third-party programming tools, such as thumbshots.org, Sandy 3D Engine Actionscript library and Tweener Actionscript library. Each tool is deployed for a specific purpose, respectively.

This type of 3D display is becoming quite popular nowadays, mainly because it allows you to sift through stacks of search results. With a simple mouse or keyboard click, you can flip cube, drag and rotate or turn the cube, and etc. You also can mouse hover to one of the results; a brief information about that particular result will be shown in your right-hand side of the Web browser, see example below.

Mixwit is a simple Web site that enable users to create a mix of their favorite music, and then share it amongst their friends. This Mixwit, is a mashup that truly special and user-friendly. There are only three (3) steps involved in order to create a mix, making it possible for even a novice user to complete the mixtape creation process.

To create a mixtape, you can search your favorite music by placing some keywords such as name of the artist, song, album or genre to the search bar, Mixwit will then return the songs available through some MP3 music sources such as Skreemr, Seeqpod, or the latest addition of ccMixter. From the songs, you can drag-n-drop the songs in order to create your own library of playlists. However, not every song you selected would be available for you to compile a track since Mixwit is only working on the APIs of Skreemr, Seeqpod, and ccMixter. In other words, it does not guarantee the availability of the songs as Mixwit does not store the songs in its back-end engine. Nevertheless, the songs that are not available at any point from the URL link repository of Skreemr, Seeqpod, and ccMixter will be labeled in yellow color for the user attention. The idea was that the song files will always be stayed in the original location on the Web.

In addition, Mixwit also taken into account flexibility. It means you are allowed to add style, i.e. in the forms of any skin, color and style, including glossiness, edges, and shadow to the mixtape. Besides, you also can upload your own pictures, photos, artwork, or drawings instead of the basic skins that prepared by Mixwit. Also, you can alter the text format or add the title and description of the mixtape. After you finishing any of these style adding actions, you can save your work and publish it to the Mixwit community.

In July this year, Mixwit has rolled out a fans/following feature. It was Mixwit’s first foray into the social networking activity. As the feature name implied, if you like the playlists someone is making, you can become a fan and following what they do. This approach is known for connecting users in a basic and yet simple manner. In this way, whenever you’ve made a mixtape, your fans will receive notifications. By the way, if you come across any mixtape you like, you can add it as favorite for bookmarking purpose.

To encourage users register themselves in the system, Mixwit has implemented a way to assign a mix path URL in a readable format, i.e. in text form. For anonymous users, the mixtapes they created will receive an usual ugly 32-character codes, and the username appeared besides the mixtape will be “Guest.” For anonymous users, they will not get the second chances to edit their mixtapes after they finishing the aforesaid three (3) steps. In contrast, registered users have more options in terms of editing and saved account capabilities.

Nevertheless, any public mixtape can be shared across the Web as a gigya widget, allowing you to direct posting to a number of sites such as Blogger, MySpace, WordPress, Bebo, Friendster, just to name a few.

Mixwit is a startup that went public beta in March this year, as well as being funded by Y Combinator.

With Quarkbase, people now can know everything about a site. In particular, Quarkbase is a mashup that went live in August this year, designed with a simple interface and focus on creating a tool that will help move the mashup technology from a cool Web developer hobby to something that is valuable to the end users. Running a simple search on any URL will return a lot of information of a particular site from which it gathered the site’s information using APIs or feeds.

Quarkbase is a simple site yet a typical example how it can use the power of mashup to create something useful when we want to know everything about a site. Users can enter any domain name and it will gather information such as a brief summary of the site, ranking, whois, social popularity, traffic, as well as some imports from Technorati and Twitter. Currently, users can only search the information about a domain, but not the subdomain as Quarkbase has promised to the users it will work on it in order to make the subdomain information visible on the site. Playing around it, Quarkbase has displayed its capability in revealing a site, but I find my disappointment when it does not show the actual logo of my blog correctly. It has captured one of the startups I profiled and act its logo as my blog’s main logo, at the time of my writing.

I believe users will find this Quarkbase as powerful, enticing, and sufficiently easy to use (we just need to type the domain name we want to search). No doubt, Quarkbase’s popularity on the Web will depend on its ability in gathering as many sources of input as possible, albeit that it is now a mashup of over 30 data sources.

UMapper is one of the Web-based applications that I’ve been tracking since it was first inception in this year. Proclaimed as first-of-its-kind of visual, universal, Web-based map authoring application, users will find it mostly useful when they want to create their Flash maps that could be embedded onto their blogs, or social networking accounts. Though UMapper still in Alpha stage, it is open its registration to the public, and if you want to test it yourself even you do not want to open an account, you’re allowed to do so, with the exception that you cannot save your map for future references.

This site use the Internet language that I believed it’s very easy to understand. You either can create your own map or explore some other maps that were created by other users. Upon you decided to create your own map, just fill-up the title and description, you’re ready to go. By default, UMapper will put its users to choose Microsoft Virtual Earth as the default map provider, but you’ve the option to use Google Earth or OpenStreet. In addition, UMapper has combined a so-called “Map Wiki” feature that help users to complete their user goals if their original purpose of building this UMapper map is a jointly effort map. If you choose the “Map Wiki” enabled in one of your maps, that particular map can be edited by anyone in the UMapper community.

UMapper also use the icons and symbols that are easy to understand. You can display the geo-data on your map by using the tools such as map controls, zoom in or zoom out, objects such as add markers, add line or polygon. etc. Moreover, you are allowed to create as many maps as you like and share them across the Web, make it accessible to the public online as a public map or private map. Perhaps the most interesting feature is the capability of exporting which allowed users to export their maps to ActionScript or KML file.

In evaluating the usefulness of UMapper, I’ve created a map called “Emirates Stadium: the home of Arsenal Football Club.” I could place a marker to the actual location that I perceived, and customize it with color, font size, as well as HTML description (if any). Most recently, UMapper also released a new version of the embed movie with new marker clustering functionality.

For registered users, they’ve the advantage of comment on various users’ maps, create maps that are shareable across multiple social networking platforms by using the gigya widget network.

Currently, UMapper’s business model is based on Google AdSense.

Twitter is now a core tool of user communication, and every new startup indisputably has every right to think out of the blue to develop a mashup from it in order to improve the existing Twitter user experience. In a time of such a Twitter fad, there is a new mashup called ToAnswer and its current offering has every opportunity to explode a new market for them.

On the landing page of ToAnswer, it said this new mashup is a Web app that trying to work as something more or less like a Yahoo! Answers meets Twitter. As a Twitter user, you simply log on to your account, and use the following format, i.e. @ToAsk, and you can instantly pose a question to the Twitterverse. A typical example that ToAnswer given is: @ToAsk Are there any good pizza joints in downtown Los Angeles? Wait for few seconds, your question will be posted in the Twitterverse, and if someone, a Twitter user saw it, and would like to give you a favor, she/he can help you with an answer in the following format, i.e. @ToAnswer [question id]. Note that question id is the identity number of your question in the ToAnswer’s system.

From a user perspective, the decisions about using it must take into account the number of followers in one’s Twitter account. If you’re a Twitter user with a heavy loaded of followers, from few thousands onward, you post a question and instantly your followers will reply to your message, you won’t feel the need to use this ToAnswer. However, if you’ve a handful number of followers, and want to get more value out of Twitter, try this ToAnswer, you’ll realize the power of the Twitter community. Likewise, if one Twitter user desperately want an advice to her own personal problem, try to answer her question and give her a helping hand. In this way, we can make our world a better tomorrow. This is an ultimate aim of developing a Web app, I wish I’m the one who thought of this great idea and developed this application