Turns out the Internet really IS a series of Pipes

Yahoo announced something yesterday called Pipes.

This is a big deal. But it's only going to be interesting for the slightly more geeky among us for the time being. Give it time though. It's a paradigm shifter. It'll seep into everyday online life for all of us soon.

The creator, Pasha Sadri, says this:

"I believe that feeds are a mechanism for content/information distribution. Pipes (or similar services) allow consumers of feeds to get more refined (ie: high quality) information out of them. This means that the publishers in return will get more qualified/interested readers of their content. So, I believe that publishers in general will benefit from having another mode of distribution for their content."

I think that for those watching, in a few years (maybe less), we'll point back to this as one of those moments when the RSS world and the cool and useful things it can do for us moved from the realm of geekdom to the world of the average user. For more read:

Tim O'Reilly's take here.
Niall Kennedy's take here.