Combining or sorting RSS feeds

[Ernie H.]

Lately, we've been getting some requests on RSS related stuff - maybe there are people who want to combine different types of Ning feeds into one giant RSS feed that they can tell their friends or post to My Yahoo! or a FeedReader. There are other users who want to integrate their RSS or Podcast into the RSS Widget on their Ning networks, but find out that they get the first couple of entries instead of the latest content.

Enter Yahoo! Pipes. Yahoo! Pipes is basically "a powerful composition tool to aggregate, manipulate, and mashup content from around the web," but it's also a fancy way of saying "it lets you do stuff with RSS feeds."

And boy, does it.

If there are people out there that really want to get their hands dirty with RSS and feed manipulation, check out Yahoo! Pipes and try playing around with UI. But for everyone else that just want to combine a bunch of RSS feeds into one, or sort their podcast RSS into chronological order, you can check out our Pipes, enter your own RSS feed(s), and use the RSS feeds that are spit out to your network or other places on the web.

And like always, let me know if you have any comments or questions!
- Ernie

[TimG]

You're right to ask, because Ning hides these RSS feeds, and I have *no* idea where I originally found these, but here goes:

ALL ACTIVITY:
http://[yournetworkhere].ning.com/activity/log/list?fmt=rss

FORUM TOPICS:
http://[yournetworkhere].ning.com/forum/topic/list?feed=yes&xn_auth=no

BLOG ENTRIES:
http://[yournetworkhere].ning.com/profiles/blog/feed?xn_auth=no&key=[yourkey]

As for this last one, I don't know where I got my (lengthy) key; it must've once been obvious, as part of an "RSS" link shown on the "All Blogs" page. I can no longer find that!

Good luck! I'm sure there must be others for content like PHOTOS, VIDEOS, etc.

[Ben Lavell]

As much as I like Yahoo pipes, I've had a much better experience by using xfruits.com's aggregator (www.xfruits.com).

[Larry D. Wiginton]

What is the correct URL in pipes to pull more of the activity log than just 20 items? I want to have a place to review activity in chunks. For example, the iPhone interface allows for "Next 20". Thanks.

[Larry D. Wiginton]

For example: http://hackleburgonline.ning.com/m/activity/log/list?page=2

...is exactly what I am looking for but I need something suitable for the desktop browser. Actually, I would be happy to just have this formatted properly on a separate page. I want to have a page that I can continuously scroll back through activity. I have so many members, and growing, that I would like to review activity on demand to learn trends about how to improve my site. I have looked at Yahoo! pipes but could not get it to bring in more than 20 items? Thanks.

[TimG]

I believe I now understand from your recent 2 posts that (a) the "20 item limit" is actually happening on the Ning side, and (b) this issue could be solved a couple of ways.

Solutions (hypothetical, anyway):

1. Let's ask Ning to allow more flexibility in the "How many items to display" settings of both the Blogs and the Activity text boxes. I mean, heck, it'd be sweet to be able to type in an exact number as well!

2. I believe Yahoo! Pipes actually are not limited in the quantity of their output, so perhaps it's worth your time discovering the many other output formats Pipes offer. Could any of them simply be placed within a "Page" of your Ning network? (Remember, a "Page" allows you to include Script and Embed code, not just straight HTML like "Discussion Topics" do.)

Something to consider, anyway. Hope this helps.

[Ryan]

Hi Ernie,

You know I tried this a while back, but couldn't successfully implement the code. I am creating a new page to place this pipe in, but when I paste the code from "Get as a badge" it doesn't recognize the code and I get nothing.

Do you know how I can get around this? I'd really like for it to be a new page and not on the front page.

Thanks,
Ryan