Pipes: Leveraging The XML Publish Subscribe Model

In the past few years, there’s been a lot of chatter about the power of XML and how it will change the way we create, manage, and deliver information. There’s no doubt that this is indeed happening. The rise of structured authoring, the increasing importance of content reuse, and emergence of Content Component Management are all made possible by XML.  If you’ve been paying attention to the XML discussions, you probably know about the ten goals of XML. You might also know about the ten predictions for XML in 2007. But, you may not be able to point to many concrete examples of XML use on the web today.

To rectify this situation, TheContentWrangler.com will help you spot interesting—and useful – examples of XML on the web. Our hope is that you will examine the XML solutions we spotlight and begin to think about creative ways to leverage these ideas to help your customers.

Our first example of a game-changing use of XML technology on the web is Yahoo Pipes. Instead of attempting to explain what Pipes is and how it works, we’ll introduce a few of the infinite number of problems that Pipes may help you solve and let you explore the rest. Here goes…

• Have you ever needed to find something (let’s say, an apartment) near something (how about an airport, business, or a park)? See how Pipes tackles this challenge.
• Ever searched the internet using multiple search engines and wished you could run that search all at once and strip out all of the duplicates automatically? Let Pipes help you find information faster by searching Yahoo and Google simultaneously.
• What if you could use the content of The New York Times home page to locate and retrieve photographs in Flickr (the online photo service)? Experience the power of keyword content analysis-based retrieval.
• Ever wonder what bloggers are saying about a particular topic? Sure, you can search Technorati or Google, but Pipes let you search multiple sources and combine them into one results stream. Experience the ease of the Pipes blog search.

There are many, many more uses for Pipes. Take a look around and create your own Pipe. Then, let us know all about it!