If This Then That - where have you been all my life?

Why oh why in the name of all things iphoney has it taken me this long to discover the pure unfiltered joy of the nifty little program/app that operates by the name IFTTT?

If This Then That

I seriously spent way too much time and battery life with this last night and even though I've streamlined a few things, I still believe I've barely come close to even farting in the vicinity of the tip of the iceberg, let along getting close enough to give it a scratch...


In a nutshell IFTTT is an online service (now in app form for ios users like my good self) that waits for a particular thing to happen (that you've told it to look for) and when that event does happen, it triggers a response (that you've also told it to do.)

Confusing I know if you're not vaguely technical, so allow me to share what I've set up IFTTT on my phone to do:

1. Anytime a new article appears on this page (Almigo.Blogspot.awesome.forpresident), IFTTT automatically tweets it for me. Normally I'd have to find the tweet button, agree with Twitter that it's okay to tweet and go from there. Thanks to a recipe I found last night, it's become automated.  I hit publish, IFTTT screams all over Twitter about it. A nifty little time shortcut.

2. When I now get tagged in a photo on Facebook, IFTTT responds by saving a copy of that photo into my Dropbox account as a permanent backup. So if Brooke Satchwell for example tags me in a photo and then suddenly changes her mind because she doesn't want me to become too famous, well I'll still get sent a copy.
This also means me getting tagged won't get lost in amongst all the birthday and game requests and invitations to letter openings around town.

She doesn't want me to get 'too famous'. Thanks Brooke!

3.  Last night I found the current price of Woolworths shares here in the land down under. Now if that price increases by a dollar or more, IFTTT shoots me an email. If it drops by a dollar or more, IFTTT shoots me an email.
Do I own Woolworths shares currently? No. But I feel this monitoring will come in very handy when I finally have some cash to acquire the vast majority of WOW.AX

4. IFTTT Has a stack of services already on board including working with Blogger, Shares, Dropbox, Gmail, SMS and Evernote just to name a few. So I won't miss out when the last service gets added, I've instructed the program to email me instantly if anything changes. When (and hopefully it's only a matter of when) IFTTT shakes hands with either eBay or Gumtree then I'll be the happiest kid in town as I create recipes to search for Toyota Soarer parts at incredibly low prices.

As proved in the shared recipe section, the possibility of things to do with IFTTT are practically endless. 

I'm likening this to have my own internet butler (who I shall from now on nickname 'Charlesworth') and I can't wait to see what it's able to do in the near future with more and more services added. (Like it recognizes that I'm drunk and has a kebab delivered to my door for example..)

If that: TELEMARKETERS CALL THE HOUSE then: HANG UP ON THEM POST HASTE.

Best of all it's free. Yep, free. You can get your own Charlesworth right here. Don't blame me if you become a little too addicted to it though. There's probably a recipe that will send you an email warning you if that's the case knowing this thing...