A very interesting announcement from Yahoo, aligned with the Web 2.0 direction of Web becoming also an application platform

The new Yahoo Pipes allows users to combine data from multiple sources, for example to aggregate several feeds. Yahoo Pipes provides a graphical programming environment, where users can drag and drop data sources and processes to an output which can be text, RSS, SMS alerts or JSON. Data sources can be feeds, user input or other Pipes. Users can share modules that they create, or clone the modules created by other users. Some of the implications of Yahoo Pipes include letting users filter out unwanted content from feeds including advertising, and allowing content to be formatted differently from how it is published. Yahoo has included information for publishers on how to block Yahoo Pipes from accessing their feeds.

 

You can find more details here: http://pipes.yahoo.com

You can read more on the subject in a recent article on how popular social networking sites start to provide API so third-party developers can build new features to attract more users – and profits which in my opinion is an excellent way of enlarging a user base.