Yahoo Pipes

Leave it up to the IT industry to come out with a new product out of the blue. Yahoo Pipes has the opportunity to be one of the killer apps of 2007. I was just experimenting with RSS aggregation in java and php last year. I had a lot of good ideas but never go around to them due to the usual not enough time to focus on any of the ideas. Recently, I found a decent java webapp called Flock that is no longer maintained but has the right idea. Flock could use some nice enhancement. And then just yesterday, Yahoo! announces Pipes!

Details of Pipes are hard to confirm since the site is overloaded and they have a nice banner message stating that "Our Pipes Are Clogged" due to overwhelming demand. From what I have read, it appears to be some type of RSS aggregation/mashup tool that provides some visualizations on what you are creating. If it is anything like the Yahoo! Site Builder, then it will probably be a rich client java application that provides a nice GUI.

At any rate, when I finally get a chance to see Pipes first hand in the next few days of weeks will blog about it and see if it stands up to the over hype.