All About: "If This Then That" Online Social Programming Service

'If This Then That' is a well known programming statement for simple 'if-then' logic. Now thanks to IFTTT.com recipes can be written to interact between two online "channels" to automatically complete tasks for you. This service is just so incredible, I had to put together this post to help spread the word! If you have ever wondered about how you can put the internet to work for you, this post is for you!

Here is a list of the channels, website and a short description of what they do so you can begin creating a "recipe" on IFTTT.

.	Service	Website	Description
.	App.net	https://join.app.net/	A real time ad-free social feed that costs money for memeber and app developers
.	Bitly	https://bitly.com/	Bookmark and organize links from the web
.	Blogger	http://www.blogger.com/	Blog posting website
.	Boxcar	http://boxcar.io/	Combines Twitter, Facebook, RSS and more feeds into one inbox
.	Boxoh Package Tracking	http://www.boxoh.com/	Track Packages with a tracking number
.	Buffer	http://bufferapp.com/	Expand your social feed with interesting articles and pictures and videos that works "automagically"!
.	BuzzFeed	www.buzzfeed.com	Popular articles on the web
.	Campfire	http://campfirenow.com/	Team Collaboration with realtime Chat
.	Craigslist	http://www.craigslist.org/about/sites	A classified advertisements website with sections devoted to jobs, housing, personals, for sale, items wanted, services, community, gigs, résumés, and discussion forums.
.	Date & Time	Native IFTTT	A Native Date and Time Channel
.	Delicious	del.icio.us	A social bookmarking web service for storing, sharing, and discovering web bookmarks
.	Diigo	http://www.diigo.com/	A social bookmarking website which allows signed-up users to bookmark and tag web-pages
.	Dropbox	https://www.dropbox.com/	a file hosting service that offers cloud storage, file synchronization, and client software
.	Email	Native IFTTT	Generic email account login
.	Evernote	http://evernote.com/	A suite of software and services designed for notetaking and archiving everything in your life
.	Facebook	facebook.com	Social Network website with over 1 billion users
.	Facebook Pages	http://www.facebook.com/FacebookPages	Orginization and Company "Like Pages"
.	Feed (RSS)	World Wide Web	RSS or ATOM feed from many places on the web
.	ffffound!	http://ffffound.com/	Image Bookmarking Site
.	Flickr	http://www.flickr.com/	Image Hosting and sharing website for Amature and professional photography
.	Foursquare	https://foursquare.com/
.	Gmail	www.gmail.com	Link to random survey data study [http://randomsurveydata.blogspot.com/2009/10/email-phone-bank-companys.html]
.	Google Calendar	calendar.google.com	Online Calendar provided by google
.	Google Drive	drive.google.com	Online file storage system by google
.	Google Reader	reader.google.com	RSS Reader aggergrater by google
.	Google Talk	talk.google.com	Integrated Google Chat Service
.	Hootsuite	http://hootsuite.com/	Social Media Management System for brand management
.	IFTTT	https://ifttt.com	If This Then That Online Social Programming Website
.	Instagram	http://instagram.com/	A Free photo sharing and social network for easy beautiful photography
.	Instapaper	http://www.instapaper.com/	A simple way for saving webpages for viewing later
.	Last.fm	last.fm	Online Streaming Music Website and Music Community Social Site
.	LinkedIn	linkedin.com	A Social networking site used for people in professional occupations
.	Phone Call	Native IFTTT	A Phone Service Built into IFTTT for phone calls
.	Pinboard	http://pinboard.in/	Basic online bookmarking service
.	Pocket	http://getpocket.com/	Save it for later service. Mark things to read later.
.	Pushover	https://pushover.net/	Pushes notifications to your iPhone or Android Device
.	Readability	http://www.readability.com/	Converts Webpages into easy to read formats for tablets and phones
.	Salesforce Chatter	https://www.chatter.com/	Create a free private social network
.	SMS	Native IFTTT	Text messaging for texting updates directly to/from your phone
.	SoundCloud	https://soundcloud.com	an online audio distribution platform that allows collaboration, promotion and distribution of audio recordings
.	Stocks	http://finance.yahoo.com/	Yahoo Finance for Stocks
.	Storify	http://storify.com/	Compile pictures from other social sites (Instagram and Facebook) to add text to create a story
.	Svpply	https://svpply.com/	A curated collection of the worlds best products and stores
.	Tumblr	http://www.tumblr.com/	A blogging platform that allows users to post text, images, videos, links, quotes, and audio to a short form blog
.	Twitter	https://twitter.com/	A social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read "tweets" up to 140 characters long
.	Vimeo	http://vimeo.com/	A video-centric social networking site which supports embedding, sharing, video storage and user-commenting
.	Weather	Native IFTTT	Pulls weather data to use in your recipies. Provided by Yahoo! Weather
.	WeMo Motion	http://www.belkin.com/us/wemo	A home automation made easy system
.	WeMo Switch	http://www.belkin.com/us/p/P-F7C027	Belkin's WeMo system for controling anything you want
.	Withings	http://www.withings.com/	Creates smart products and apps dealing with you
.	WordPress	http://wordpress.org/	An Open source blog tool and publishing platform
.	Yammer	http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yammer	An social network for companies
.	Youtube	http://www.youtube.com/	A video-sharing website where users can upload, share and view videos
.	Zootool	http://zootool.com/	Visual Bookmarking to collect, organize and share your favorite images, videos, documents from all over the internet

Table last updated: December 2012

IFTTT is busy adding additional channels so some of the newer services may not be included in the table above. Just looking over these services we can see that some interesting recipies can be made to automate tasks on the web. Some ideas are:

• If it's 9:00 A.M., Then call my phone
• If it's going to rain today, then send me a text message
• If I take a picture on Instagram, then Send it to my dropbox account
• If a photo of me is tagged on facebook, then upload it to Evernote
• If my Stolen Bike Shows up on Criagslist, Send me a text message

Those are just a few simple recipes that others have already made for you. However, IFTTT provides a creative environment for you to begin creating your own recipes. Put this service to work for you. Combine the different channels to 100% automate your own task. It's Truly Wonderful! I am excited to see how IFTTT expands and allows for more recipes. Currently they have a WeMo channel for products in "the real world" to interact with and connect to. The Potential here is endless!

While the current IFTTT is jaw dropping, I figured I would give a word or two about some additional services that would be over the top spectacular to include. Of course any additional ideas you may have can be included in the comments! 

Here are some additional channels I would love to see added to IFTTT:

• Google Services: Latitude, Voice, Translate, etc,
• Groupon [Wiki]
• Mint.com [Wiki]
• Strava (or other exercise apps)
• Pintrest [Wiki]
• Home Security Systems, Baby Monitors, Web Cams
• IFTTT triggers to create new recipes

Opening these additional channels and adding some additional trigger features could create more possibilities such as:

• Translating your email/news feed from text to speech for a morning phone call
• If Groupon posts a deal about dog grooming services in my area, then send me an email
• If one of my Mint.com account drops below a $100, then send a Facebook status asking for money from friends.
• If Strava detects a new ride/run, then log it in a google drive spreadsheet.
• If Gas Buddy Lists the lowest Price at the station near my house, Then send me a text message.
• If a Latitude friend is out of their typical State, then send them a text message saying: "Have a great trip!!!"
• If a song on youtube is played twice, then use a youtube ripper site to download the audio to my dropbox account
• If I tweet about a trending topic on twitter, create a new IFTTT recipe to email me news about that topic

Also adding more complex scripting to gain the ability to have multiple triggers to trigger one 'That' service would be interesting. Or having a If this then that, that, and that kinda programming logic available. It's inevitable, that with all the possibilities of IFTTT, people have figured out a way to make money using this service...even if it is only nickels. The degree of automation and usefulness of IFTTT creates a high probability that a useful service can be automatically generated for a large group of people to benefit creating a revenue stream for the creator.

I love how IFTTT  is a lot simpler than yahoo! pipes or other similar services that require tedious details. While IFTTT does limit functionality, it provides a simple foundation to program basic web tasks. This maybe limiting for now, but in time I'm sure the service offerings will grow and with it functionality and endless opportunities for web 3 point 0 programming to really change the web as we know it!