Pipes is an intriguing new service that recently went online from Yahoo as a Beta. It allows you to create RSS feeds by taking two or more and combining them together in creative ways. For example, you might take the daily headlines from the New York Times and use that as a filter for keywords of RSS feeds of Flickr photos. Another example I saw at the site was constructed from feeds of real estate listings from Craigslist filtered through Google Maps and other services to show houses and apartments that are available near landmarks or particular types of commercial businesses.
This type of application could have many uses in classes for student research where students engage in activities to construct their own “pipes” to analyze current data on the Internet.
Pipes beta at Yahoo