ifttt Worked!

When I first heard about ifttt I thought it sounded really cool. For those of you that don't know, ifttt is an abbreviation for "If This Then That". The site allows you to create tasks that have triggers and actions which work across various channels like twitter and email. Check out their wtf page to learn more.

As cool as it sounded I couldn't think of a reason to use it at first. But after looking over the channels and options for each, I thought of a problem that ifttt could help me solve. People occasionally post questions about SkillBuilders plug-ins in the APEX forum. The problem is that the APEX forum doesn't have a notification system that allows one to search for strings so I may miss those posts.

I noticed that one of the channels in ifttt is for RSS feeds and the forums do provide that ability. Another channel is for email. So I set up a task that monitors the forum looking for "skillbuilders" in the in post and sends me an email when it finds a new one. I did this around a month ago and yesterday I got my first notification - awesome! I'm looking forward to figuring out new ways to use this great technology and I hope you can too.