How to Supercharge All Your Favorite Webapps withifttt

Wouldn't it be handy if every time someone tagged a photo of you on Facebook, that pic were automatically added to your Dropbox folder? If items you starred in Google Reader were automatically added to Instapaper or Read It Later? Or if you received a text message whenever it was going to rain? If This Then That (ifttt) is a brilliant web service that let's you plug information from one service into another, allowing you to link all your favorite webapps to create super-charged integration between tools like Gmail, Dropbox, Instapaper, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Foursquare, and oh-so-much more. Here's how to use ifttt to get more from your online life. How ifttt Works The service can feel a little tough to grasp when you first dig into it, but it's actually very simple. You can use iftttin two different ways: Create custom Tasks. Tasks allow you to create a work flow based on some sort of conditional statement (the pillar of all programming!). "If [this thing happens on one service], then [do that on another service]." For example, "If I post a new photo to Instagram, then download it to Dropbox." Use pre-made Recipes. Recipes are simply pre-built tasks made by other users that you can add to your ifttt account. In the section below I'll walk through how to create a task from start to finish; then I'll highlight some of my favorite pre-made ifttt recipes that you can start using in a couple of clicks, no setup required. (If you prefer, you can just go straight to the recipes, though I'd recommend reading through how to create a task so you understand the basics.) How to Create an ifttt Task As I mentioned above (and as the service's name implies), a task is made of an If ... Then ... statement. Put in ifttt terms, If trigger, then action. The trigger and action are the building blocks of ifttt tasks, and you define them using available channels. ifttt channels are made up of the services ifttt supports, like Craigslist, Dropbox, Evernote, Facebook, RSS feeds, Flickr, Foursquare, Gmail, Google Reader, Instagram, Instapaper, Last.fm, SMS, Twitter, and so on. You can see all of ifttt's 35 (currently) supported channels here. To wrap your head around how to create a custom task on ifttt, let's create a simple task on ifttt that automatically downloads Facebook pictures you're tagged in and stores them in your Dropbox folder. (This task is available as a recipe in the section below, but it's a good example, so I'll walk through how to make it yourself first. Navigate to ifttt's Create a task page (you'll need to sign up if you haven't already). ifttt holds your hand through the task creation process, so when you first visit the task creation page, you'll see this: