Today I heard Accenture’s Gene Reznik share intriguing stats during a session about the thriving developers community building applications and services, called mashups, that will work on top of popular web based tools such as Google maps. (To further clarify, a mashup is a web application that combines data from more than one source into a single integrated tool, thereby creating a new and distinct web service not originally provided by either of the sources individually).

Gene said there are nearly 3,000 registered mashups since the first one was put out there about two years ago. And this number is growing at 50 percent per year. I thought it was telling, also, when Gene referred to the fact that Facebook, a leader in mashups, already has 20,000 applications developed by third parties and is adding 140 per day. This all sounds to me like something important on the IT business and technology horizon. And like so many facets of the Internet, it’s somewhat unchartered territory.

The session panelists, a European telecom carrier and a North American device manufacturer, freely admitted they weren’t quite clear how they could or would capitalize on mashup opportunities. Clearly, monetizing and controlling this creative Internet phenomenon is a big question. But it was obvious to me these panelists are going to be proactive, because they feel they have to.

Watching mashups from the sidelines will be more risky than getting in this game for real. Mashups should be approached proactively as a potential business opportunity, and threat, even though it will require much trial and error by carriers, devices makers and software developers to find the answers. This is quite illustrative of how business grows today.

Are you involved in mashups? How do you see the mashup story unfolding?