Intel Mashmaker (KINDA SORTA BUT NOT REALLY BETA)

Last month Google Mashup Editor closed down. It was "migrated" to the Google App Engine. I use Yahoo Pipes - but it's buggy and gives me migraines. Today, I decided to try the impossible - to find an alternative to Pipes

An app - whatever it is - first has to be shown to work, then it has to be shown that it's stable and finally that's it's supported. Pipes is almost 1 out of 3. It works - but it has problems. Lots of problems. And I'm not convinced - at all - that it will be around a couple years from now.

Intel offers something. Since Intel isn't going to go bankrupt tomorrow - I decided to check out it out - Intel Mashmaker (BETA).

It's important that you notice word "beta" there. It's available as a Firefox add-on. Before I installed it, it I decided to slog through google and slog through searching its sub-domain at Intel to separate the hype from the reality. Does it actually work? Is it useful?

Today I realized that while googling for mashups the word "regex" should always be used. A "this is a truly fantastic, unbelievable and amazing app!" that doesn't support regex is nothing more than empty hype or perhaps a toy.

I'm happy I didn't just download Mashmaker and start using it first and try to figure it out second. After about 30 minutes I found this:

Mash Maker is not a product. It is not a beta, or even an alpha. It is what we like to call a "technology preview release". The purpose of this release is to allow external people to have a play with Mash Maker and see what we are doing. Mash Maker contains known bugs and feature holes and you should expect things to break fairly regularly.

It is possible that Mash Maker may become a supported product in the future, but it does not have that status now.

So, it's what? The Intel Mashmaker (KINDA SORTA BUT NOT REALLY BETA)? Sheesh.