MCP Mashups: How AI Agents are Reviving the Programmable Web

Remember the Mashup Era where developers mixed and matched APIs from different vendors to create new services?

This was such an exciting time for developers. APIs like Google Maps, Twitter, and Flickr gave developers access to data they could use to create interactive user experiences that were simply delightful. However, the excitement eventually fizzled as developers realized they had to maintain these applications which were often just fun side projects.

Now, 20 years later, that excitement and curiosity has returned with the introduction of AI Agents. With the MCP (Model Context Protocol) open standard, developers can integrate data and functionality from multiple services without the burden of maintaining full systems. By connecting AI agents to various APIs, resources, and data sources, we get quick modern-day mashups.

In this talk, we’ll explore how AI Agents are bringing fun and creativity back to software development and giving new life to the “programmable web”.