Patent ID: 7680939

Claim:
A pipe specification editor computer program product to configure a pipe for processing a syndication data feed, the editor computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium having computer program instructions stored therein which are operable to configure one or more computing devices to: provide a graphical user interface to receive a user specification of a plurality of constituent pipes, each constituent pipe characterized by one or more pipes and/or modules, each constituent pipe characterized by an input node and an output node, wherein the input node is configured to input a syndication data feed and the output node is configured to output a syndication data feed; and at least one of the constituent pipes includes a module configured to retrieve a source syndication data feed, one or more of which includes a module to retrieve a source syndication data feed that is data representing content of a web page but is not itself the content of the web page; wherein the input node and output node of a constituent pipe correspond to input nodes and output nodes of pipes and/or modules by which that pipe is characterized; provide a graphical user interface to receive a user specification of wires to connect each of at least some of the output nodes to at least one input node, wherein the wires are configured to provide a syndication data feed provided from an output node of a constituent pipe to an input node of another constituent pipe; and save, as at least a portion of a pipe specification, an indication of the user specification of constituent pipes and wires.