The idea of a mashup, or a site built with pieces of content from other sites, is definitely not an unfamiliar idea to me or most people. I have a large network of such sites based around sports and I’m starting to branch out into other topics lately as well. My latest is a site about my favorite record label called Sub Pop Bands.

I’m a big fan of the mashup idea for two reasons: speed and simplicity.

Mashups Are Quick

I have a custom built content management system for my mashup sites but even if you don’t have that kind of programming knowledge making your own mashup site is relatively simple. There are so many widgets and free scripts to let you bring in fresh content that putting together your own mashup site should take no time at all.

Aside from the content from outside sources, my mashup sites also contain hand-written content that I have made unique for that site. Whether you write this content yourself or hire someone to write it for you is your decision to make. When I have the content in hand I simply copy and paste it into my CMS and the site is updated.

Mashups Are Simple

A mashup site isn’t a complicated e-commerce store, a frequently maintained blog or any other type of time consuming website. it’s really a simple content site that is augmented with automatically updating features to keep the site fresh with new content. How can it get much simpler than that?

It is that simplicity that makes it possible to produce, quite literally, dozens of these sites with little to no effort. For under $50 I can have all of the necessary content written for me and away I go. No fuss or hassle after I load up the site using the content management system.

The End Goal

The whole point of the mashup site, as with most things online these days, is to make some money. You can use something like phpBay Pro to add eBay listings to your sites like I do. I also include AdSense and sell private advertising on the sites when the time for that is right. It takes a bit of time but not a lot of effort to turn these sites into profit machines.