Yahoo Pipes caused a bit of a stir this week. The wizzy drag and drop editor allows one to mash up RSS & Atom feeds to their heart’s content and publish them for the rest of the world to use. Very cool, but I found myself wanting for a few more features. For instance, there is no way to draw bits of text from a feed to use as input for another module. That feature alone would open up many more possibilities.

Here’s my first crack at a pipe: NY Metro Craigslist. This is very basic in that it allows one to create an RSS feed for a craigslist category (e.g. bicycles for sale) across a few craigslist sites that cover the New York City area (NYC, North Jersey, LI). It will work with most CL categories (not the personals though, sorry casual encounters fans). The end result is an RSS feed. Since it takes user input, one can make a feed for just about anything like garage sales, motorcycles, or jobs in biotech.