4 ms·

I liked Yahoo pipes, but they're super limited compared to IFTTT

• skuhn 12y ago
  Pipes is a dead product, it's just waiting for someone to remember to turn off the light. Even in 2011 it was on life support. It's a great example of how even when Yahoo hits on something interesting, they will neglect it and fail to profit from it. Instead IFTTT launches 4 years later and gets a $170mm valuation.
  • kleer001 12y ago
    > Pipes is a dead product It totally is. Is there something that can rise from the ashes or was it just a waste?
    • skuhn 12y ago
      At least when I was at Yahoo (many years ago), there was zero apparent desire to even continue to operate in that type of service space. I guess Yahoo wants to be a media company and sell ads, not provide APIs to do nerd stuff for free. I would look to Zapier or IFTTT instead. I haven't used Zapier, but the fact that they actually charge money (shocking!) gives me hope. Maybe they can actually build a business around it.
• possibilistic 12y ago
  I have never used Yahoo pipes, but I found IFTTT to be quite limited when I tried it earlier this year. There are no booleans, pipeline control, arguments, scheduling, reuse, etc. I know this tool wasn't written for me, but these are things that I would derive real value from. I want visual tools at a level just above a scripting language, hosted on a managed platform I can largely ignore. An API for webhooks and oauth, 3rd party API support, triggers that can run custom javascript or python... I'd pay all the money for that.