The other day I stumbled across an interesting new website that our programmer friends will love. The website is called IFTTT currently has 35 available sites and services users can connect to and interact with, including Facebook, Twitter, Craigslist and YouTube. Users can also create tasks that are triggered by conditions such as the date and time and the weather. After creating a task, users can share that task with others in IFTTT by using Recipes.
There are some great task recipes available now. There is one where, if tomorrow’s weather forecast predicts rain, IFTTT will send the user an email, and another that automatically sends a “thank you” Tweet whenever the user gets a new follower on Twitter. One user even shared a recipe that emails him whenever an RSS feed finds information about new streamed content available on Netflix. While the possibilities certainly aren’t limitless, there are many helpful ones.
I decided to conduct a simple test of the service. I signed up and connected it with my location in the “Weather” channel, then put my phone number in the “SMS” channel. I created a task (which is an incredibly easy process, even for those not technically inclined) that sends me a text whenever tomorrows forecast calls for rain. The task worked flawlessly. The next day I received a text message warning me of expected rain.
The many options, ease of use, and reliability make IFTTT a big winner. Sign up, connect it with some of your existing website accounts, and give it a shot!
