Remixing the Web, part 2: Using Yahoo Pipes

Yahoo Pipes is the Swiss-army chainsaw of remixing the web. It pulls in data from any web pages, spreadsheets, or RSS feeds that you choose and can filter, extract information (like prices or e-mail addresses), overlay it on a map, and much more. I’ve used it to:

• Geolocate Craigslist apartment listings in my college town, overlay only the ones within 2 miles of the university on a map, and give me an up-to-date RSS feed sorted by the lowest price.
• Monitor social media conversations on every popular social networking site, filter for keywords that include my client’s company, and export them to an RSS feed that they can easily subscribe to.
• Compare prices of any item on eBay, Amazon, and Craigslist in real time.

These are just a taste of what you can potentially do with Yahoo Pipes, and the best part is that the interface is so intuitive that it’s easy and quick to get started–no programming required.

If you’re interested in learning more, these free and easy-to-follow tutorials will get you up and running in no time:

• Dawn Foster’s Yahoo Pipes video series.
• http://www.mrspeaker.net/2007/02/10/yahoo-pipes/
• O’Reilly’s “Pipes and Filters for the Internet”

And you can check out the examples above and more at my Yahoo Pipes Page.