[warning: technical information ahead]

We've created a connector that lets you easily extend any workflow by connecting to an external REST endpoint. The REST connector is compatible with the Yahoo! Pipes Web Service Module — the only difference is that we only process with a single entry instead of a feed of entries.

The connector POSTs a JSON encoded list of properties to a service URL and expects a JSON or RSS formatted response. Here's an example JSON response:

{
  "items" : [
  {
    "title" : "My title",
    "link" : "http://example.com",
    "description" : "My Description"
  }
  ]
}

The compatibility means that you can use any existing Web Service that already worked with Yahoo! Pipes. OpenCalais offers a service with those characteristics and we decided to give it a try with our new REST connector.

This example workflow uses the REST connector to talk directly to the Calais Yahoo! Pipes Web Service. The OpenCalais URL (including the API key) is specified using the TextInput connector.

Creating your own external Web service is also very easy. All you have to do is wait for a POST, process the incoming JSON information and output a JSON formatted response. Here's an example written in PHP:

<?php
//
// Obtain the input from the POST "data" field
//
$input = json_decode($_POST['data']);
 
if ($input) {
    //
    // As an example, the output is copied from the input
    //
    $output = array();
    $output['title'] = $input->items[0]->title;
    $output['link'] = $input->items[0]->link;
    $output['description'] = $input->items[0]->description;
 
    //
    // Output JSON encoded response
    //
    echo json_encode(array('items' => array($output)));
}
?>

We hope this new REST connector will create new possibilities and expand what you can already do with your workflow. Please let us know how you'll use it with your Web services.

Check out this week's featured workflow by, DJ Adams (@qmacro on twitter). He really surprised us with his beer rating workflow:

DJ Adams uses this workflow to snap a picture of the beer he's drinking, publish the picture on flickr along with its rating and announce it on identi.ca. Quoting his blog post:

• post the picture on Flickr with the beer name as the title and the rating words as tags, including a statically added ‘beerrating‘;
• have a short URL constructed via TinyURL for the new Flickr picture page;
• dent the rating, with the short picture URL, on identi.ca (which in turn, re-dents to Twitter too);
• reply to the original email confirming that the beer was successfully rated.

What about you? How are you using tarpipe? Would you like to be featured as tarpipe of the week? Just send a direct message to @tarpipe!

Are you gonna be at SXSW this year? Do you wish you could grab your cell phone, take a picture, and have it automatically published on Flickr and twitter with all the right tags? We thought about that and created a very easy way to automatically share pictures while enjoying the numerous conferences and parties happening in SXSW.

How does it work? Simply go to http://tarpipe.com/workflow/sxsw09/ and click on the "Start sharing!" link. Follow the instructions and you can start sharing by sending MMS or email messages to the generated email address. The generated workflow will perform the following actions on your behalf:

• publish your pictures on Flickr;
• add SXSW tags to your pictures;
• associate them with the SXSW event on upcoming;
• announce your pictures on twitter;
• add the #sxsw hashtag to your tweets.

You can even change the created workflow if you want to publish information to social media destinations other than the featured Flickr and twitter.

What are you waiting for? Start using this workflow, enjoy your time at SXSW and share what you're doing with your friends!

DISCLAIMER: The SXSW logo is © 1995 - 2009 SXSW, Inc. All other logos, mentions or names are considered trademarks of their respective owners. tarpipe is not affiliate with the SXSW Festival nor is this workflow generator considered an official SXSW tool.

We've just added a very different type of connector: the TextInput.

How does it work? Simple: any text that you insert can be used as an input to other connectors. There are so many different uses for the TextInput connector, so let me give you some suggestions:

• adding fixed tags to your pictures;
• sending an email message to a fixed destination;
• adding specific text to all your tweets (for instance, hashtags).

Here's an example workflow that uses the TextInput connector to automatically tag the picture and also add a hashtag to the tweet (click on the screenshot for a larger version):

What do you think? Let us know how you're using the TextInput connector.

Take a look at this week's featured workflow, by Luís Miguel Braga. To be honest, this is the most comprehensive workflow we've seen so far (click on the image to see a larger version):

Luís is using this workflow to share images to almost everwhere:

I use this workflow to share images (via email or MMS) to the various social networks that I use regularly and my tumble log.

The subject holds a quick/smaller comment about the image.

The body contains a longer text about or related to the image.
The imageAttachment gets uploads to various photo hosting services, just for redundancy.
The two TextFormaters join the picture url with the text. One for the small comment, the other for whole tumble log post.


This way the image is posted to 23hq, flickr, TwitPic, FriendFeed,
Facebook. Its address and the smaller comment get posted to Twitter,
Identica, Plurk, Jaiku. The longer post goes into Rejaw, Tumblr,
FriendFeed and Facebook.

It's kind of complex, but it works great and gives me a big help in
getting in touch with all my contacts spread over so many social
networks.

What about you? How are you using tarpipe? Would you like to be featured as tarpipe of the week? Just send a direct message to @tarpipe!