A relatively new web service, IFTTT (If This And then That) lets y'all automate tasks between other pop services such as Dropbox, Twitter, Evernote, Facebook, Instapaper, and many others. IFTTT works by telling it what task you want carried out, what will trigger this task, and information technology volition put it into action for y'all.

Channels, triggers, actions, ingredients, recipes... these are some of the terms used by IFTTT, and although information technology may seem complicated at first glance, it's really extremely easy to employ.

Here's a applied example in case the whole concept doesn't ring a bong all the same...

Say I want to go on up with how a certain country is doing in the London 2022 Olympics. First, I enable the ESPN channel and immediately I'll be asked to set up a trigger from a number of predetermined options. In this case I'll choose "new Olympic medal by state". Side by side, I'll specify which country to follow and create the trigger. That'south the 'If This' part.

You lot'll demand to choose a channel for the second portion of your recipe.

Since I want to be notified past SMS I'll choose that channel -- though you tin practice a number of other things like automatically posting information technology on social networks or your personal calendar. Afterwards activating the SMS aqueduct I'll choose the 'Send me an SMS' activity and configure the message to my liking. That's the 'And so That' part.

The resulting recipe is shown with a self-explanatory graphic along with options to share information technology publicly.

The process is very easy to follow on IFTTT'south site. There are currently fifty dissimilar channels, including social networks, essentials like electronic mail and RSS feeds, and even Belkin's WeMo devices to bring IFTTT tasks to the physical world. IFTTT's tagline is "Put the internet to work for you lot" and that's exactly what information technology does.

Of course, you don't accept to create all tasks from the ground upwardly, as there are already endless of useful recipes existence shared. I've hand-picked a few of my favorites and created a scattering others to get you started.

Freebies and Deals

  • Receive daily PC game deals via e-mail, IM (Google Talk), or SMS. The deals are sourced from steamgamesales.com'due south RSS feed and include data from 9 different stores. Optionally, you can set an alert for whenever a specific game gets a discount and receive it via email, IM, SMS.
  • Get Amazon'southward daily Gold Box deals past email, IM, or SMS. If you're annoyed with too many alerts that are uninteresting to yous endeavor creating your own recipe using a specific keyword such equally SSD or LCD, for example. Just use Feed as the trigger with the URL https://rssfeeds.s3.amazonaws.com/goldbox.
  • Go notified of Apple'due south official free app of the week via email, IM, or SMS. If you are an Android user, in that location'south also a recipe for Amazon's Appstore complimentary app of the day notifications by e-mail, IM or SMS.

    • Bankroll upwardly and Social Networks

  • Automatically send starred tweets containing links to Instapaper to catch upwards reading later (annotation: many Twitter clients already include a 'send to Instapaper' option but it may come up in handy if you apply the official client or web interface.) A similar recipe is available for starred items in Google Reader.
  • Automatically send every Facebook photograph you're tagged in to your Dropbox folder. This recipe serves both as a fill-in and a way to ensure that any photos fastened to your name will be accessible to yous at all times, even later on it's been deleted from Facebook. Yous'll demand to sync your Facebook and Dropbox accounts.
  • Save all Instagram photos to Dropbox. Similar to the IFTTT recipe above, this one volition help Instagram users go on a local fill-in of all their faux vintage photos by synchronizing them with Dropbox.
  • Archive your Foursquare check-ins to Google Calendar. Although I'yard not a huge fan of bank check-in based social networks, this ane can come in handy while traveling if yous want to keep a log of the places you've been to -- landmarks, restaurants, and so on -- all with their respective dates on your calendar.
  • Synchronize your Twitter profile picture with Facebook's. This 1 is self explanatory and it basically volition save y'all the extra steps to update your Twitter contour picture past using Facebook'south whenever it changes.

    • Others

  • Text to escape. Need an excuse to run away from a tiresome or awkward situation? This recipe lets you lot trigger a customized phone call to your jail cell by sending a text message to IFTTT. Yous can customize the phone telephone call message or create multiple messages triggered for different situations. Only U.s.a. numbers are supported.
  • Wake-up call. This recipe lets you schedule a call to your phone at a specific time and day of the week.
  • Text conditions. In that location are a number of weather-related recipes on IFTTT, you tin choose to get the atmospheric condition every morning past SMS, for example, or but a warning to let you know it will rain or snowfall.

    • Other pop services that are available as channels that nosotros didn't mention here include Blogger, Gmail, Flickr, LastFM, YouTube, Wordpress, amongst others.

    Because you also become to play with RSS feeds, you lot can potentially create automated tasks for any given website. As before, if you want to create your own recipe yous can later on share that with other users on the site or borrow existing ones.