IFTTT - If this than that

Recently I saw an interesting service called IFTTT, which allows to connect a lot of different services in the web with each other or with your smartphone. A simple example is automated crossposting of photos to different photo platforms.

IFTTT (pronounced like "gift" without the “g”) allows you to create simple rules called recipes, that consist of a trigger condition (i.e. 'if this') and an action which is executed, when the trigger fires (i.e. 'than that').

The services that can be integrated by IFTTT are called channels and they offer triggers and / or actions. I.e. the Flickr channel allows triggers like

• Every time you upload a new public photo to your photo stream, then ...
• Every time you favorite a public photo, then ...

The action that can be executed on this channel is:

• Upload a public photo to Flickr

The triggers and actions can also have parameters that are called fields. The action fields can be filled with values of the corresponding trigger fields or with own data. The recipes can be created with an easy to use web interface, see below the example of crossposting Instagram to Flickr:

The action fields in the example are mostly set from the Instagram post.

There are currently over 160 different channels implemented by IFTTT. Some interesting channels for photographers are

• Instagram, Flickr, 500px, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Blogger, Wordpress 
• but also storage providers like Dropbox, Google Drive or Onedrive.

BTW: There are also channels available to control your smart home, e.g. your Philips connected bulbs. So it is easy to create funny recipes like

“Every time one of my photos becomes popular on 500px, blink the lights at home”.

As a conclusion IFTTT seems to me an interesting service and I will follow how it further evolves.