Yahoo Pipes fans have been expecting this news for a while, and today it came. Yahoo Pipes, and some other Yahoo products that no one even knew existed, are gone.
I didn’t know Yahoo had a maps application, so I won’t miss it. I have no idea what GeoPlanet and PlaceSpotter are, so I can’t miss them. But I have always been a big fan of Yahoo Pipes, which TechCrunch describes as:
[A]n online (and somewhat geeky) visual interface that let you aggregate and filter web data without requiring the end user to have programming skills.
Yes, it was that, but it was a super-charged, very handy that. It allowed you to easily and graphically create bundles of RSS feeds that you could then syndicate for use in other places and projects. My original Headline News Page used Yahoo Pipes, as did numerous other content aggregations I developed over the years. Sure, I didn’t use it as much in the last few years (and, undoubtedly, therein lies the problem), but it was a cool service, and I liked knowing it was a tool at my disposal when needed.
I’m not sure what Yahoo’s long-term plan is, or what it’s trying to become. But I’m seeing fewer reasons to visit a Yahoo site, not more. Yahoo could have owned the personal portal space (which I am convinced is not as meager as mobile-first developers would have you believe). Yahoo ignored Flickr into near oblivion (though they are trying, at least for the moment, to revive it). Yahoo bought and starved Delicious to death. I’m not sure what’s left. But I know what’s gone.
Adios, Yahoo Pipes. You were cool. You will be missed.
Newsome.Org 