The Internet is a series of pipes

Everyone's been writing about it (so you've probably heard that joke at least a dozen times), but it's actually back up again, so I guess it's our turn. After experiencing some plumbing difficulties, Yahoo! Pipes is again making its debut. If you're familiar with the concept of Unix pipes, you'll get the general idea, but here's how the creators describe it:

Pipes is a hosted service that lets you remix feeds and create new data mashups in a visual programming environment. The name of the service pays tribute to Unix pipes, which let programmers do astonishingly clever things by making it easy to chain simple utilities together on the command line.

What types of data mashups can you create? How about a visual interpretation of the top stories of the day from the NY Times? Or a list of all of the Yahoo! corporate blogs (hey, where are we?)? Heck, I don't know, play around with it and find out. Hopefully you'll be amazed.

2 Responses to “The Internet is a series of pipes”

  1. Sundar Says:

    “The name of the service pays tribute to Unix pipes, which let programmers do astonishingly clever things by making it easy to chain simple utilities together on the command line.”

    I like this part much - both the name and the philosophy.

  2. Larry Roberts Says:

    So when is the new tv.yahoo.com/listings going to show up here as a Cool Thing? What are you waiting for? It’s been out more than two months!

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