Kapow: enterprise mashups with RSS and Atom

Kapow Technologies on Monday is releasing a new version of its Mashup Server, software aimed at businesses looking to combine data sources through Web-based mashups.

Mashups are programs that take information from different sources to create a new application. Some of the most popular Web mashups involve plotting information on Web mapping services.

Kapow sells server software for managing automated data feeds. For sites that don't have an automated data feed, the software allows developers to create a feed and manipulate that data, said Joe Keller, the company's chief marketing officer.

For example, a company could take information about a new invoice from a sales application, combine it with information stored in a database, and then plot it on the Google Maps service.

Kapow Mashup Server 6.2 now add support for RSS and Atom protocols. The server already sports other programmatic access methods, including Web services, Java and JavaScript, Keller said.

Kelly noted that there are a growing number of tools for building Mashups, such as IBM's QEDwiki and Yahoo Pipes. But businesses need some sort of server software to customize feeds, he said.

"There are so many sites that their only interface is a browser. We can turn those into programmable sites," he said.