A relatively new site has peaked my interest called ifttt (If This Than That). I never really fully embraced a social media automation tool until now.
What really sets this site apart from the rest is the amount of power it puts in the hands of normal internet users that previously had few ways to interact with the growing number of public social media APIs out there. This mixed in with some ifttt tools to allow you to send text messages, set timers and even convert voicemails to text makes ifttt my new favorite productivity tool.
How Does It Work?
The site provides an easy to use interface that allows you to create triggers and actions to automate repetitive tasks.
The site goes beyond the traditional “send all of my posts to Twitter” type of automation to allow you to create tasks that interact with a whole variety of services. So beyond sending all of your posts to Twitter, which you can easily do, you can send your posts to Delicious, Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr and more. But it’s not just about automating RSS feeds, the real power is in the interaction between other services. Sending tweets with a hashtag to Delicious or uploading new Flickr images to Facebook.
So What Can This Cool New Tool Do?
Besides being able to do what other automation tools can already do, ifttt currently allows you to interact with 36 other services with some really amazing potential. Here are some of my favorite Tasks I’ve created so far.
Send Starred Posts In Google Reader To Twitter
This task allows you to easily send any posts you star in Google Reader as links to twitter. You can then go into the ifttt settings to sign in with your Bitly account to easily track those links.
Leave A Voicemail To Create New Google Calendar Events
This is my favorite recipe I’ve created so far. Basically I just call a phone number provided by ifttt and leave voicemails with new events like “Meet Joe at Starbucks at noon tomorrow”. I’m always looking for easier ways to interact with my calendar so this has been an awesome bit of functionality.
Send My Featured Images From Posts In WordPress To Flickr
I’ve been wanting to organize all of the featured images I create for my posts in Flickr but just never got around to it. Now there’s no need and my hard work can go on display in Flickr with a link back to my post automatically.
Some Other Great Recipes
- Get A Text Message If It’s Going To Rain Tomorrow
- Send All Tagged Facebook Photos Of Yourself To DropBox
- Save Your Foursquare Check-ins To Google Calendar
- Leave Voice Memos That Are Emailed To You And Transcribed
Scratching The Surface Of Free And Easy To Use Automation Tools
I imagine I’ll find other cool uses for ifttt as they continue to add new channels. The simplicity of the site and use of recipes to share task templates should drive the service pretty far. They have laid the groundwork to become one of the most powerful free social media automation tools on the internet and I’m excited to see where it goes.
2 replies on “Automating The Internet With ifttt”
Thanks Jon for sharing this new site and it’s my first time to encounter it. I guess, no matter what social media automation tools you use, it should give you one thing: Freedom… from social media fatigue and the likes. I’d say simplicity is the key to it all and so long as you automate responsibly, I’d say there’s nothing wrong with using these tools. As for me, I’m loving my own and in the end, all these social media automation tools available out there should help free up your time so you can use it to engage with your peers instead. Cheers!
[…] and new APIs popping up from popular social media sites expect easier ways to use them. Sites like Ifttt.com and Yahoo Pipes put the power of public APIs from sites like Twitter, Yahoo, Google and Facebook in […]