Until now JSON output has been the only way to obtain all the data flowing through a Pipe. Starting today we’ve added a second way of getting all the data - serialized PHP Pipe output.

To get this, go to your Pipe -> More options -> Get as PHP. Right click the “Get as PHP” link to copy link location (or copy shortcut if using IE).

After obtaining the link location, you can do something as simple as this to get Pipe output data as an array into your PHP script.

// Pipes Request
$req = 'http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.run?_id=ZKJobpaj3BGZOew9G8evXg&_render=php‘;
// Make the request
$phpserialized = file_get_contents($req);
// Parse the serialized response
$phparray = unserialize($phpserialized);

To view the array in your web browser, use this piece of PHP code to help visualize the array.

print_r($phparray);

To view a code sample on how to do a request go here. To read more about serialized PHP at Yahoo!, go here.

It’s then up to you on how you want to display or use the Pipe data. The possibilities are endless.

Did you ever want an easy way of putting Pipes output onto your website or blog?

Introducing - Pipes badges!

We currently have three types of badges - map, image and list. Map badges are available if there is geocoded data in the feed. Image badges are available if there are media images in the feed. List badges will always be present if there is valid data.

Read more about how to configure them here.

You’ll notice that on the Pipe info pages there is a new link called “Get as a Badge.”

Click on the “Get as a Badge” link and a wizard will guide you on adding it to certain destinations like your WordPress blog, iGoogle page or any web site (that supports Javascript).

For those of you that are more technically inclined, we are using a script node replacement technique that uses JSON embedded configuration (This is based on Kent Brewsters “Case Harded Javascript”).

It’s Pipes first birthday and we’ve grown so much!

We’d like to thank our users and developers for making Pipes so successful. It really makes us enjoy getting up in the morning and coming to work.

Since our launch (way back in 07), we have been focused on listening to what you want and prioritizing those features in each release. This has meant adding over 20 new modules, redesigning our site to make Pipes easier to find and use, and numerous backend enhancements. As always, please give us your suggestions here.

It’s amazing to see the variety of Pipes that people have been building using the simple visual editor we provide. These range from translating text from one language to another, to searching for the best apartments near a park, to monitoring hundreds of RSS feeds for certain topics.

In the past year we’ve adding some cool features such as, Flash support (tutorial link), iPhone support (wired buzz), Private Field support (external tutorial link) and Fetch Page module (external tutorial link) just to name a few.

We also have had some awesome tutorials created by our amazing users. Here are some recent articles:

• A brief reintroduction to Yahoo! Pipes - Part 1 of 5
• Yahoo Pipes - A case study of using the Regex Module

Pipes Books! Download these and print them out for your bleary eyes:

• Working with Yahoo! Pipes, No Programming Required
• O’Reilly Short Cuts - Yahoo! Pipes

We have some new cool features coming in the near future - find out about them on this blog!

In the mean time, check out these recent Pipes we’ve made. yahoo.search.image - by Jonathan (our fearless co-founder of Pipes) - shows how a Pipe can be used to wrap REST-style APIs and Feed Item Search that looks at the search results of any query and finds RSS items in those results. craigslist / zillow mashup - created by Paul (gui gluer) - cross references Zillow and craigslist to find out what Zillow thinks the estimated price should be in craigslist and yahoo buzz image search shows 5 images associated with each Yahoo! buzz item.

We were delighted to hear about the first ever pipesCamp that was recently held in Chennai, India.

The event had approximately 50 hackers and hobbyists attending. The event not only allowed experienced users to share new ideas, techniques and pipes - but also provided a community for new users to tap into the power of Yahoo! Pipes.

The agenda of pipesCamp covered the history and evolution of Pipes, the usage of Pipes from a blogger’s and developer’s perspective, experiments with Pipes, workshops / tutorials and feature request discussions. There was also a running contest for “Best Pipe” during this camp with prizes announced at the end of the day. In the afternoon a “hackday” event was held where people formed into groups and created a pipe.

Here are some of the pipes that were popular from the hack event:

• Pipe which can map a bus route in Chennai, India
• http://pipes.yahoo.com/siddhi/mtcmashup

• Ego Search using pipes
• http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=ff3f0342dc7d98890f78cc78bb642e83

Overall the pipesCamp was a success! We hope to see more pipesCamps in the future and congratulate the organizers Prabhu & Bhasker for putting it all together.

More links from the event:

• http://pipescamp.pbwiki.com/
• http://prabhu.wordpress.com/2007/12/24/my-presentation-on-pipescamp-2007/
• http://blog.hover.in/2007/12/17/see-you-the-first-yahoo-pipes-unconference/
• http://static.slideshare.net/bosky101/end-user-programming-yahoo-pipes/
• http://coolsrini.blogspot.com/2007/12/my-visit-to-pipescamp.html

Our new favorites feature makes it easier for you to share, use, and re-visit Pipes that you like. To favorite a Pipe click on its corresponding star icon.

There are a few ways to access favorites:

• You can view a list of your favorites by clicking on My Pipes. Next to the list of your Pipes you’ll notice the favorites tab.
  
• In the Pipes Editor you have access to your favorites in the Library pane.
  
• You can look at someone else’s favorite Pipes by clicking on their username and navigating to their list of favorites. When someone else looks at your favorites they will only see a list of all the Pipes in your collection that have been Published.

Here’s a list of some of our teams favorite Pipes.

Pipes now supports the ability to process and emit CSV and iCal data.

There’s a new module in the Pipes Editor called Fetch CSV that allows you to retrieve online data sources formatted in CSV (comma separated values). Checkout this example to see how you can start working with CSV data in Pipes.

We have also updated the Fetch Feed module so that it now supports the retrieval of iCal data. Here’s a simple Pipe that demonstrates how to start working with iCal data.

If a Pipe contains an iCal source, or contains the Fetch CSV Module, you’ll notice the appropriate links to “Get as iCal” and “Get as CSV” on the runpage.

O’Reilly Publishing has a series called Short Cuts that is intended to “spotlight one specific topic, usually in fewer than 100 pages.” We’re excited to announce that there is a great new Short Cut on Pipes!

This Short Cut shows you how to use Yahoo! Pipes. Examples illustrate the workings of every Yahoo! Pipes module (more than two dozen), and show how to incorporate these Pipes into your own web pages.

We’ve setup a del.icio.us account to start sharing Pipes related URLs. You can access it here:
http://del.icio.us/pipes.yahoo.com

In the past few weeks we’ve discovered many great tutorials, videos, creative Pipes and interesting ways Pipes is being used.

We’ll continue to add to the list but if you come across something you think we should add please bookmark it on del.icious along with the tag “for:pipes.yahoo.com”. Thanks for sharing!