A tool that lets you automate the Internet

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/23/a-web-tool-that-lets-you-automate-the-internet/

by rmason • 15 years ago

61 13 15 years ago

bits.blogs.nytimes.com

coob• 15 years ago

ifttt is fantastic, it make automation mind numbingly simple.

If you're looking for a different, more advanced kind of web automation, http://fakeapp.com/ is incredible.

kordless2• 15 years ago

itod is awesome.

biot• 15 years ago

Fake seems a lot like what Selenium can do.

derleth• 15 years ago

This is precisely what people in the early-mid 1990s were predicting would happen, with 'intelligent agents' and 'autonomous agents'. Wired was all over that kind of stuff, as I recall.

http://web.media.mit.edu/~lieber/Lieberary/Letizia/AIA/AIA.h... http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue7/search-engines/ http://www-cdr.stanford.edu/NextLink/Expert.html

EGreg• 15 years ago

This is cool, but check out Yahoo Pipes ;)

_jak• 15 years ago

I saw the link for ifttt on HN a few weeks ago and it reminded me that Pipes existed, and that I need to actually test the limits of what it can do.

westiseast3• 15 years ago

I can't help read the privacy policy and see:

"In some cases, we may choose to buy or sell assets. In these types of transactions, customer information is typically one of the business assets that is transferred"

So basically, I authorize a large number of my social applications (facebook, twitter, google,tumblr, youtube, mobile phone) and iftt gets a single unified linked feed of ALL my data, along with behavioural data too (ie. I like to receive emails and texts at 11pm), which it reserves the right to sell. And for a website that doesn't have an obvious charging mechanism, what else can I assume except that their revenue stream will be selling my data?

Data mining trojan in my opinion..... it's a shame it's actually such an attractive tool.

westiseast3• 15 years ago

ps. if it turns out this is not the case, I actually like the tool - signed up and used it briefly. I'd be happy to be proved wrong because I do want to use it.

kordless2• 15 years ago

Is this really what concerns you, or are you just being pedantic?

A casual inspection of the quote you pasted here shows 100s of sites using similar language: http://logg.ly/VLO

It's boilerplate dude.

westiseast3• 15 years ago

I'm not normally massively wary about privacy, so I don't think I'm being pedantic - it's probably the first time I've really complained about data privacy. I signed up, started using the tool, and halfway through a warning bell went off.

Eg. I use Facebook to signup for lots of sites (eg. AirBNB), but they get a basic level of read access to my data and I see that clearly. To use IFTTT effectively I would have to give them the highest level of read-write access to ALL my social networks, plus mobile phone information, personal preferences, email account, blog bla bla bla. Even Facebook or Google doesn't get this level of access (although they probably can extrapolate it from somewhere I guess).

I'm not one of these people making paranoid rants about facebook and privacy constantly, but I think IFTTT needs to inspire more confidence that my data is in safe hands before I'd hand over everything like that - seriously, it would solve a lot of problems for me and I'd love to use it!

eg. are they going to download all of my information from facebook/twitter bla bla as soon as I authenticate? Or do they just store it as/when they need it? Will it personally identify me, or will my data be aggregated anonymously. Who has access to my personal data? What's their revenue stream? Am I going to start getting spam text messages along with my notifications??

wolfparade• 15 years ago

I think the guys who made ifttt are HNers. If so how'd you all do it. How'd you get this NYTimes article?

duck• 15 years ago

Featured on HN 3 weeks ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2970550

urza• 15 years ago

One thing I never liked much about the whole "web 2.0" thing is how it reduces "the Internet" to a few specific apps/sites. If you don't have your photos on Flickr, don't save notes to EverNote, or if you don't use WordPress or Tumblr for your blog, you are out of luck (with ifttt anyway).

Sometimes it feels that if email were to be invented today, it would be closed-sourced app running on one domain driven by a startup funded by Ycombinator.

Please startups, favour openness, decentralization and protocols instead of shiny apps with rounded corners. The world is big, with many people in it and diversity is always better in the long run.

A tool that lets you automate the Internet

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