Technology and App Review: IFTTT

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Do you remember when you were a kid?  That feeling you got when you walked into the candy store?  Or the toy store?

I remember when I enlisted in the Marine Corps.  I owned a 1994 Honda Accord.  It was a great car.  I knew it would be a couple of years before I would see it again so I sold it.  I also sold my Takamine (it’s an acoustic guitar).  It was beautiful.  When I arrived at the language school in Monterey, CA, I had no car and no guitar.  I did have a wad of cash, though.

My entire life I’d wanted a Taylor guitar (I have a 1959 Gibson J45 with a J200 neck now – awesome!).  Like it was yesterday, I remember what it felt like to walk in that music store on Alvarado St. knowing that I was leaving with a Taylor.

I’m being a bit hyperbolic, but I am just about that excited with my new discovery.  Let me introduce you to IFTTT!

IFTTT:  If This Then That

The idea of this website is to allow users to create if-then automated tasks between multiple social media platforms.  If This happens Then That happens.  Got it?  Let me give you a popular example:

  • If Facebook profile picture changes, then update Twitter profile picture.
  • If you are tagged in a photo on Facebook, then it will be sent to Dropbox

Can you see the possibilities?  The Grovo Blog calls it “programming for dummies.”

Vocabulary

  • Channels – channels are the building blocks of IFTTT and are the social media platforms themselves – like Twitter, Facebook, Gmail, Evernote, Dropbox, etc.  They currently support 53 “channels.”
  • Triggers – triggers are the ‘This’ in the ‘If This Then That’ formula.  It is what must happen first.
  • Action – action is the ‘That’ in the ‘If This Then That’ formula.  It is the effect in the cause and effect relationship.
  • Recipe – the recipe is the connection that is made when you put the above together.  Here is a screenshot from the IFTTT website.

How to Get Started

The user experience of IFTTT can’t be much better.  It is clean and simple – super easy.  Follow the steps below to get started.  Then get to simplifying your lives!

  1. Create an account – Create a username, enter your email, then your password twice.  About as easy as it gets.
  2. Link Your Channels – Frankly, I was really surprised at how easy this was.  I use 22 of the 53 channels, and I had them all linked in under 5 minutes.  The only one I had problems with was WordPress.  You must enter your URL without “http://” or “www.”  So for me, it was just “bobarron.com.”
  3. Create Recipes Use Other People’s Recipes – OK – you can create your own, but why bother?  According to IFTTT’s blog, over 1,000,000 recipes have been created as of April 30, 2012.  There’s no telling how many there are now.
  4. Search for Your Favorite ‘Channels’ – Since IFTTT is a social site, you can see other people’s recipes.  That is great, but with over a million, a search function is crucial.  The search auto-populates and is super fast – like a Google search.  As I love Evernote, I did a quick search to find that there are 3,999 recipes.  Kid in a candy store!

A Few Notes

I want to highlight a couple other points.  At the end of Sept ’12, Twitter shut down IFTTT’s ability to use Twitter as a trigger. Again, a trigger is the ‘if then’ part of the formula.  Twitter can still be the ‘then that’ part.  Essentially, you can not use IFTTT to auto-respond for you every time someone follows you or retweets you.  As I don’t particularly like the canned thank you ‘DM’ (direct message), not a biggie for me.

Google+ is not a channel.  I’m not sure why that is, but there are workarounds using other channels like Hootsuite.

Verdict

I’m excited.  I think there are some great efficiencies to be had here – especially with Evernote and Dropbox.  I plan on exploring more of this in the coming weeks.  I also think that as IFTTT gains a broader base of users, the recipes will expand as well.  I easily see many posts in the future along the lines of “Best 10 IFTTT recipes for Evernote.”

I’d like to hear from you!  Had you heard of IFTTT before?  If so, what are some of your favorite recipes?
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Categories: Blogging, Commercial Real Estate, Facebook, LinkedIn, Social Media, Technology, Twitter

Please note: I reserve the right to delete comments that are offensive or off-topic.

  • Yes, I have been using it and had set up 2 of my own recipes using Google+. I am glad you reminded me of it as I really should revisit it more frequently. I do not even know if they are still running, but I assume they are. I recall using it with Google+ because Google+ was the one platform that had nothing that could easily integrate with it, like other sites. I set them up when Google+ came on board and quite frankly, I just let them run. I will go back and check things out again to see if there are more recipes there for Google+. I do recommend IFTTT, if you are someone who likes to automate things. There are so many moving parts today that you definitely need a friend like IFTTT to do stuff to save time. As far as Twitter, their development team is clamping down on many outside apps that interface with Twitter. It is too bad that Twitter has to do this, but I am sure from their side of things, it is a necessary evil to manage the huge demand on their systems.

    Thanks for reminding me about IFTTT. It is a genius idea and is very useful for those daily tasks you cannot do with other applications today.

    Good find Bo!

    • I really just need to spend more time with it. I see real applications on pushing original content like blog posts out to multiple channels.

  • This reminds me of ping.fm (now Seismic ping) as far as the multi-channel posting goes but I like the idea of automatically sending content to Evernote and Pocket (formerly Read it Later…notice a pattern here?). Going to check it out as part of my ongoing mission to stay organized!

    • I’m with you Chris. The Evernote, Dropbox, and Pocket possibilities are really exciting. Serious efficiencies could be had here.

  • Zapier.com is an IFTTT for business with over 100 product integration.

    • Nice…very easy, too. You don’t have to create an account to see how it works/set up a “zap.” Pricey, though, if you want to create more than a handful.

      • I’ve never heard of Zapier.com. I’ll be sure to check it out. Thanks for the suggestion Jason. Go lease another brewery!

  • Bo, I know you’re an Apple guy, but for any of your readers with Android devices, check out Atooma in the Google Play store. It’s like IFTTT but for you’re Android powered smartphone or tablet. Similar potential and opportunities.

    • I read an article about Atooma that it was basically what you said – IFTTT on the android device. I am definitely an Apple homer – thanks for the reminder!