I had signed up for an IFTTT.com account months ago, and I have to admit that I didn’t use it much. I knew the tool was helpful and I knew it was just a matter of finding the right reason to need it.
Since I recently moved to a new city, I have been scouring Craigslist “Curb Alerts” to see what amazing things I could get for free. Instead of constantly checking Craigslist, I setup IFTTT to look at the RSS feed from my Craigslist zip code, and send me an email everytime something came up that I would be interested in. I am now the proud owner of a food-mixer and a coffee table.
IFTTT stands for “If This Then That.” It is a common structure found in computer programming. This website allows you to link multiple online accounts, Facebook, Twitter, Google Drive, etc. so that they inter-operate in a way never intended before. So in the above list of Facebook, Twitter, and Google Drive, I could write set of instructions, called a “recipe,” so every time I post a picture to Facebook, it saves a copy to Google Drive, and then tweets that I added a new picture.
The IFTTT software automates simple processes that we need to do every day if we are to continue using multiple different services from separate vendors. Some of the recipes can be very complex as well, but you can copy from many of the free examples and do a web search for more ideas.
It’s very powerful software, and allows an incredible range of actions limited mostly by what effort you want to put into it.
The largest con of the software is the existence of all user accounts being linked to one central account. In theory if IFTTT were to be compromised, there is a higher chance of damage than if a single one of my FB, Twitter or G+ accounts were a target. They do use SSL between sites and channels, but there is no mention of my account information being encrypted even when not in active use.
Their privacy policy can be found here:
https://ifttt.com/privacy
And here their description:
https://ifttt.com/wtf
If you have a few tasks that you routinely do to operate between services, I highly recommend spending an hour or two and becoming familiar with how IFTTT works, you may save yourself countless hours as we engage in more and more online services.