Neha Patil (Editor)

IFTTT

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Developer(s)
  
IFTTT Inc.

Founded
  
14 December 2010

Available in
  
English

IFTTT httpsuploadwikimediaorgwikipediacommonsthu

Original author(s)
  
Linden Tibbets, Jesse Tane

Initial release
  
7 September 2011; 5 years ago (2011-09-07)

Stable release
  
Android: 3.1.2 (January 10, 2017; 2 months ago (2017-01-10)) iOS: 3.1.2 (January 3, 2017; 2 months ago (2017-01-03))

Operating system
  
Android 4.1 or later iOS 7.0 or later (iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch)

Type of business
  
Conditional statement creator, task automater, internet of things

Founders
  
Linden Tibbets, Alexander Tibbets, Jesse Tane, Scott Tong

Profiles

Twitter

IFTTT is a free web-based service that people use to create chains of simple conditional statements, called applets. An applet is triggered by changes that occur within other web services such as Gmail, Facebook, Instagram, or Pinterest. IFTTT is an initialism for If This Then That.

Contents

Typical applets might:

  • Send an e-mail message if the IFTTT user tweets using a certain hashtag
  • Copy a photo on Facebook to a user's archive if someone tags (identifies) the user in that photo

    • IFTTT was created by Linden Tibbets, Jesse Tane, Scott Tong, and Alexander Tibbets in San Francisco, California. They launched it on September 7, 2011.

    In addition to the Web-based application, IFTTT for iPhone launched on July 10, 2013, and contained three channels: iOS Photos, Reminders and Contacts. IFTTT release an iPad version with iOS notification support on April 3, 2014. Later that month, on April 24, 2014, IFTTT released an Android version of the app.

    On February 19, 2015, IFTTT renamed their original application to IF and released a new suite of apps called Do. Do apps let users create customizable shortcut applications and actions. Linden Tibbets also announced that IFTTT users are now "cooking" about 20 million "recipes" each day. All of the functionalities of the Do suite of apps have since been integrated into a redesigned IFTTT app.

    History

    On December 14, 2010, Linden Tibbets, the co-founder of IFTTT, posted a blog post titled “ifttt the beginning...” on the IFTTT website, announcing a new project called IFTTT. The first IFTTT applications were designed and developed by Tibbets and co-founder Jesse Tane. On September 7, 2011, Tibbets announced on the official website that IFTTT was open.

    By April 30, 2012, users had created one million tasks.

    On July 10, 2013, IF released IFTTT for iPhone.

    In June 2012, the service entered the Internet of Things space by integrating with Belkin WeMo devices, allowing Recipes to interact with the physical world.

    On April 3, 2014, IFTTT released a version for iPad and iPod touch. Developers also introduced a new channel called iOS Notifications Channel.

    On April 24, 2014, IFTTT released a version for Android.

    By the end of 2014, the IFTTT business was valued at approximately $170 million.

    On February 19, 2015, IFTTT launched three new applications. Do Button triggers an action when you press it. Do Camera automatically uploads the image to the service of your choice (Facebook, Twitter, Dropbox, etc.). Do Notes do the same as Do Camera, except with notes instead of images. As of November 2016, the four apps have been combined into one. By December 2016, the company announced a partnership with JotForm to integrate an "Applet" to create actions in other applications.

    Overview

    IFTTT employs the following concepts.

  • Services (formerly known as channels) are the "basic building blocks of IFTTT", they mainly describe a series of data from a certain web service such as YouTube or eBay. It can also describe some actions controlled with certain APIs like SMS. Sometimes, it can represent information in terms of weather or stocks. There are particular triggers and actions in each channel.
  • Triggers are the "this" part of an applet. They are the items that "trigger" the action. For example, from an RSS feed, you can receive a notification based on a keyword or phrase.
  • Actions are the "that" part of an applet. They are the output that results from the input of the trigger.
  • Applets (formerly known as recipes) are the predicates made from Triggers and Actions. For example, if you "like" a picture in Instagram (trigger), an IFTTT app can send the photo to your Dropbox account (action).
  • Ingredients are basic data available from a trigger—from the email trigger, for example: subject, body, attachment, received date, and sender’s address.

    • Usage examples

  • IFTTT can automate web-application tasks, such as posting the same content on several social networks.
  • Marketing professionals can use IFTTT to track mentions of companies in real-time in RSS feeds.

    • Reception

    IFTTT has received positive reception from Forbes, Time, Wired, The New York Times, and Reader's Digest.

    Microsoft, another software developer, has developed a comparable product: Microsoft Flow.

    References

    IFTTT Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA