Creating Connections in the Cloud with IFTTT

Just like many of you, I use a lot of cloud based services to do my daily stuff.

Many times there is not a built-in way to get data from some of these services to other ones so finding a tool that makes those connections is critical because it allows you to automate some of that sharing and productivity.

For me that tool is If This, Then That aka IFTTT.

Any of you who are familiar with programming or coding terms will find the name of this service familiar because it refers to creating an argument in the code that will look for situations, If This, and take designated actions, Then That, to fulfill the intended action of the programming.

The IFTTT service allows you to set up recipes for Do and If situations between apps and services. These recipes can be shared publicly for others to find and use plus you can search recipes that others have shared through the service.

To give you an idea of the scope of the IFTTT service they have over 300 channels, otherwise known as services & apps, that can feasibly be connected and perform routine processes for you. Just for awareness though, not every channel can be connected with every other channel. A logical relationship must exist between them. For instance, you can not turn on one of your Hue lights by uploading a photo from Instagram to OneDrive.

Some of the products and services that you will find at IFTTT include adn this just scratches the surface:

If you follow me on Twitter you know I share a lot of tech related content thru my account and many times people wonder if I ever sleep because the account is typically active 24 hours a day at least during the week.

Well the magic of IFTTT allows me share articles from my 130 RSS feeds that I keep an eye on each day through Feedly to Buffer which then sets up those links to be shared one every 15 minutes.

I also share those same saved items from Feedly to Delicous to create an RSS feed that is then used to build a posting on my personal website highlighting the last set of links that were shared on Twitter.

You can see my shared recipes over at IFTTT plus as you get started using IFTTT I recommend searching for the products and services you want to connect. It is very likely one has already been created that you can pull up and modify for your own use.

Building recipes on IFTTT is a very graphically driven step by step process. As you choose your services/apps it will require that you log into those accounts in order to authorize and make those connections. 

We would love to hear how you put IFTTT to use in your own daily digital life so please share links to those recipes in the comments below.

But, wait...there's probably more so be sure to follow me on Twitter and Google+.