Yahoo Pipes launches--but what is it ?

There has been lots of buzz around Yahoo and their newly launched Pipes beta. So what is it? Plain and simple, it's an interactive feed aggregator and manipulator. Pipes can be used to create RSS feeds that are a lot more useful and powerful than any other feed reader. Pipes is a Yahoo!-hosted service that enables the user to remix feeds that create data mashups with a visual approach. The Pipes tool allows users that have basically no skills or technical experience with web data to combine sources and develop new web services that they can share with others. With the tool, users connect pipe segments, like Yahoo! searches, Flickr feeds, and Google Base items, creating a complex application within minutes. Tutorials on how to use Pipes are currently not online, but are expected to be in a few days. There is a Yahoo! discussion forum open to users that wish to discuss Pipes with other early adopters. TechCrunch, GigaOM, and John Battelle all have blurbs about the service that you can check out.