Many efforts are centered around creating large-scale networks of "smart 
things" found in the physical world (e.g., wireless sensor and actuator 
networks, embedded devices, tagged objects). Rather than exposing real-world 
data and functionality through proprietary and tightly-coupled systems, we 
propose to make them an integral part of the Web. As a result, smart things 
become easier to build upon. Popular Web languages (e.g., HTML, Python, 
JavaScript, PHP) can be used to easily build applications involving smart 
things and users can leverage well-known Web mechanisms (e.g., browsing, 
searching, bookmarking, caching, linking) to interact and share these devices. 
In this paper, we begin by describing the Web of Things architecture and 
best-practices based on the RESTful principles that have already contributed 
to the popular success, scalability, and modularity of the traditional Web. We 
then discuss several prototypes designed in accordance with these principles 
to connect environmental sensor nodes and an energy monitoring system to the 
World Wide Web. We finally show how Web-enabled smart things can be used in 
lightweight ad-hoc applications called "physical mashups".