Let’s say I just caught my 1yr old son tearing something down…again. I snap a picture of it because, even though he’s bad, he takes the time to smile at me in the midst of his demolition. I would like to share this picture online, not because I’m afraid and want to document a history of his behavior, but because he’s my special little guy.

I just took this photo with my cell. I want to send it to Flickr, FriendFeed and Twitter with a little message about what he’s destroying. This is automatically going to require me to send out 3 different messages to three different addresses. Let’s say I would also like to toss the photo up on Tumblr, and clip it to Evernote. You can see where this whole process would make you just put your phone away.

Tarpipe is a service that aims to make things like this simple. You can create a workflow within Tarpipe that describes what you want it to do with your data. The interface is similar to Yahoo Pipes. Once you’re done, you get a unique email address that activates the workflow. Here is a simple example:

The Tarpipe interface allows you to add/remove and organize these modules, which represent various services. You then connect these modules to describe how you want your data to flow. In the above example, we accomplish the following:

1. Save the photo to Flickr
2. Post the photo to FriendFeed
3. Shrink the photo’s URL from Flickr and post it to Twitter

All we have to do is send one message and all these actions are taken for us. A log of our actions is saved on Tarpipe so that we can see what’s happening. A number of services are currently supported, with more to be added. You can send a standard email, send a message from your phone, or use the DropPipe droplet if you’re on a Mac.

It’s still in it’s early stages and some may say it’s difficult to use, but Tarpipe is definitely a front-runner in helping to make our online social lives a little simpler. For more details, take a look at this quick how-to. There are also workflow screencasts available on the Tarpipe blog.