New OTP: feeds/ifttt

[sarken]

ifttt -- it stands for "if this, then that" -- is a nifty service that can automate some web-based tasks. For instance, it can e-mail you a reminder to take an umbrella if the forecast calls for rain, or it can take all the pictures you post on Facebook and put them in your Dropbox.

It can also do some fantastic things with RSS feeds. Like, say, the new AO3 fandom feeds.

Want all the new Kirk/Spock fic automatically added to your Delicious account? No problem -- you can even specify the tags or make it private. (It also works with Pinboard, but I'm not sure how the tags work over there.) Want an e-mail notification when a new Sherlock fic tagged "asexuality" gets posted? You can do that, too. Heck, if your favorite author writes in too many fandoms and you just want to know when they post new X-Men fic, you can set that up, too.

How does that work when AO3 only supports fandom feeds? Well, AO3 includes characters, pairings, and so on in the feed posts, and ifttt lets you trigger actions (like sending an e-mail or creating a bookmark) based on what's in posts instead of just "a new post exists."

There are a lot of different things you could do with it, and the process of setting up a task (e.g. "if there is new Buffy/Spike, then send me an e-mail") is pretty straightforward, so I'm not going to write up instructions -- instead, I'll just leave you with the suggestion that, if you're sad there's no character or pairing feeds, you might want to sign up for ifttt and poke around a bit. You might come up with a solution that's perfect for you.

Comments

[twtd]

Ifttt is awesome and I never would have thought to use it like that. Mainly it tells me when it's going to rain and reminds me to pay the rent.

[sarken]

Fandom: Yeah, we can find a use for that.

[annchi]

This looks really useful. Especially with the AO3 feeds. Thanks!

[unjapanologist]

That looks awesome. I can see I will waste many, many hours of good working time poking at this :)

[talimenios]

Thank you so much. This is so cool.

[laisserais]

Oh, thanks for the tip! Been meaning to check out ifttt. Such a neat way to use it. thanks!

[yourlibrarian]

Hmm! Useful!

[rheanna]

Thank you so much for this!

[night_reveals]

I already have too much to read to actually justify *searching* for more, but ittt sounds gloriously useful in other ways...

Thanks!

[moonie]

Want an e-mail notification when a new Sherlock fic tagged "asexuality" gets posted?

I've been playing with ifttt for a bit (thank you so much for pointing it out!), but for the life of me I can't figure out how to tell it to only alert me when a story in the Sherlock feed is tagged John/Sherlock. I'd love some help if anyone has a moment to spare.

[sarken]

You should be able to do it by using New Feed Item Matches and putting John/Sherlock in for Keyword or Phrase.

[moonie]

Ouch, I was poking around the New Feed Items without the Keyword option. Thanks!

[arcanetrivia]

Do you know how to get it to pipe through RSS into Google Reader? I have the task set up for "new feed item matches" a certain keyword in the fandom feed, and it seems to be triggering properly, but nothing is coming through into Reader. I have this for the action:

Add subscription
Feed or page URL: {{FeedUrl}} {{EntryUrl}} {{EntryContent}}
Folder name: ifttt {{FeedTitle}}

Is that wrong? (well clearly I'm doing something wrong...) I authorized ifttt to talk to Reader, but the folder's not there... should I be manually adding a subscription somehow? (where would I get that feed URL? Or is that even what's happening here, that ifttt is outputting a new RSS feed with only my desired items in it? If not, what is it doing?) Or creating that folder myself first?

I looked up some recipes that do RSS > Reader things and they seem to be set up similarly, so I dunno what's not working...

[sarken]

Sorry, but I don't know anything at all about Google Reader. Maybe someone who does will see this, though.

[ninetydegrees]

Hi Sarken! Do you know if a feed can output another feed? The question of filtered feeds came up in a recent post and someone mentioned ittt could filter them but they didn't know if you could use it to make a different feed. I haven't seen recipes for this but I haven't browsed them all either.