ifttt – cron jobs for the internet

Posted Sunday, September 18, 2011 at 11:41 am by Liza Shulyayeva

ifttt is a new online tasking service that according to them, allows you to “put the internet to work for you”. “ifttt” stands for “if this then that” and pretty much amounts to cron jobs for the internet. The main idea revolves around creating tasks that fit into a simple structure:

if this then that.

Where “this” is a trigger and “that” is an automated action. Some examples of tasks might be:

If I star something in Google Reader then add it to my Read It Later account.

If I publish a new post to WordPress then publish its title and URL on Twitter.

If tomorrow’s forecast predicts rain then send me an SMS to notify me.

It’s that simple and yes, SMS notifications do work in Australia. at least they do if you’re with Vodafone – we haven’t tested the other service providers just yet.

Recipes
ifttt allows users to share task “recipes” with each other. At the moment there are 135 pages of recipes on the site. With 10 recipes listed per page, that’s a decent number of recipe contributions to choose from.

Channels
Triggers and actions use channels. There are thirty channels currently available to use, from Twitter to Yahoo! weather to the current date and time. Channels require one-off activation, which usually takes up to a minute or so:

Where ifttt came from
ifttt was created by two pretty cool sounding guys – Linden Tibbets and Jesse Tane (told you they sounded cool). One day while trying to solve an event-driven programming problem, Linden had an “Aha!” moment:

“I realized that the key to unlocking the creative potential of our existing digital tools might be to build a service that simplifies and consolidates the way those tools can be connected.“ – Linden Tibbets

Thus, ifttt was born. You can read more about the thoughts and history behind the project in Linden’s post on the ifttt.com blog.

How ifttt could be better
ifttt is in currently in Beta so nobody really expects it to be perfect just yet. There are some features I wish it would have that it currently doesn’t. One of them is folders to organise tasks. With the number of tasks one can create being unlimited, it’s easy to see how you could eventually end up with a pretty huge list of tasks on your “Tasks” page. Yes, you can filter your tasks (which is pretty much just a search feature), but I’d love to be able to put my tasks into category-based groups, like folders.

I also wish (and I’m not sure if this would be over-complicating the idea behind ifttt) that more than one action could be created in one task. For example, instead of having two separate tasks when publishing a new blog post – one task for posting its URL to Twitter and another task for posting its URL to Facebook, I could just have one task that does both actions – if I publish a new blog post, then publish the link on Twitter and Facebook.

Will ifttt remain free?
My biggest question about ifttt.com right now is whether the service will remain free. Tibbets and Tane must have some sort of monetization plan or projection in place, whether it’s advertising, payment plans, or even selling the company when it goes big and letting monetization be the buyer’s problem. I’m curious to see where they take the project in that regard.

The great thing about ifttt is that it isn’t just a creative, original idea. It’s an original idea with amazing practical application potential. One of those ideas that makes you think “Why didn’t anyone else think of this before?” I’m already using ifttt to send me reminders, do some of my Tweeting, and monitor the weather for me. The service fulfills a genuine need and does this with amazing ease for the user.

ifttt.com is currently in open Beta; you can check it out by registering here.

Liza Shulyayeva is a blogger and web consultant in Perth, Western Australia. She likes technology, big ideas, and your mom.