In the modern age of the web API’s are all the rage and making our websites more dynamic and our lives simpler however getting your teeth stuck into an API or making two API’s communicate and do something functional together in harmony isn’t exactly the easiest task and involves a lot of research and studying of the specific API you are interested in. Enter IFTTT short for IF This Then That! Apt! This is a service which aims to bridge the gap between the plethora of services which offer an API to get the most potential out of these tools with the least heavy lifting and complex programming.
Channels
Channels is the term given to all of the different services which offer API’s that IFTTT support. See IFTTT channels to browse through the supported services.
Recipes
A recipe is a combination of two channels and the action they will perform together. Go to IFTTT Recipes to see examples of featured and new recipes both created by the IFTTT team and other users in the community. You can even build your own from scratch if you have an idea which is not currently available.
So why is this so awesome and how do we use it at Pixelloop to make our lives easier?
Recipe 1) IF a post is published on “WordPress” THEN the title and link will also be automatically posted to “Facebook”.
Recipe 2) IF I take a photo on “Instagram” THEN post it to “WordPress”.
The above are two fairly straight forward publishing examples to syndicate things and save admin time however the possibilities are endless, for instance you could set it up with your phone so that when your mother rang and you missed the call it automatically emails her to tell her you will call back as soon as you are available! Or you could send a text and have it turn your lights on at home or hit a switch to open a dog flap to let your dog out. In conclusion using these kind of tools together can really empower your life and I think things like this have the potential to revolutionise our lives and save us precious time and make you more money.
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