Hot on the trail of Google, Microsoft announced this afternoon that it too would be discontinuing it’s own Mashup Editor, PopFly [1]. Naturally, no one is happier to rejoice in the demise of these two experiments than Yahoo, whose own Pipes offering continues to thrive [2].
Having test-driven Pipes recently, I’m not too surprised. Pipes’ success, much like twitter, lies in its simplicity and elegance; they’ve focused on delivering core data that serves as the essential building block for integrated applications. It’s a simple way to build a unit of logic that’s truly boundary-less.
Now take aggregation service of today like PopUrls [3], for instance:
I’m hard-pressed to see exactly how this exact same data, supplied by public RSS interfaces, can’t be constructed in a personalized fashion using Pipes in a way that can be consumed by existing readers?
What’s really the value-add here, beyond the interface?
And if there is a value-add, why isn’t it exposed for consumption by others?
Yahoo Pipes carries immense potential for the wider development community and it’s no surprise that it’s the lone standing ‘Mashup Facilitator’ among the leaders.
[1] – Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/17/AR2009071700741.html
[2] – Pipes Blog
http://blog.pipes.yahoo.net/2009/07/17/microsoft-popfly-and-google-mashup-editor-rip/
[3] – PopUrls (Thomas Marban)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PopUrls
http://tomatic.com/
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