This is a good Ability to use to keep Aggro on more than one target.
The feral talent Primal Fury gives you 5 Rage on a crit in bear form. If you crit on many of the targets from a swipe, you'll get a lot of Rage in return.
Damage-wise, this ability is generally more effective than Maul against multiple targets.
/Patch 4.0.1 (2010-10-12): The Bear Form and Dire Bear Form version of this ability now have a 6 sec cooldown and rage cost increased to 30
Patch 3.3.0 (2009-12-08): renamed Swipe to Swipe (Bear) to separate it from [Swipe (Cat)], range increased to 8 yards.
Patch 3.1.0 (2009-04-14): The Bear Form and Dire Bear Form version of this ability no longer has a targeting requirement and hits targets behind the druid and to the sides.
Patch 3.0.2 (2008-10-14): Now affects targets within a range.
Previously, threat generation was 1.75x damage done. Now the threat multiplier has been removed. However, the increased damage compensates the lost of threat, especially in AoE tanking scenarios.
Edit
/
Patch 4.0.1 (2010-10-12): The Bear Form and Dire Bear Form version of this ability now have a 6 sec cooldown and rage cost increased to 30 
Patch 2.0.10 (2007-03-06): No longer affected by Savage Fury. 
