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With $30M More in Hand, IFTTT Looks to the Internet of Things

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Re: With $30M More in Hand, IFTTT Looks to the Internet of Things

#91

Post by Zigurd »

idlewords wrote: post #6

IFTTT strikes me as the canonical example of a useful, small project that people would pay for that instead got stars in its eyes. For the moment, it's a great example of venture capitalists subsidizing a useful adapter cable for Internet services. But I get nervous when infrastructure gets delusions of grandeur. If 'cron' suddenly acquired a staff of 40, I would start looking for alternatives.

With autonomous sensors and radio beacons coming I can see a multitude of use cases involving IFTTT.

Also, one might have said the same thing about github.

Re: With $30M More in Hand, IFTTT Looks to the Internet of Things

#92

Post by johnward »

jggonz wrote: post #19
ericHosick wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If 'cron' suddenly acquired a staff of 40, I would start looking for alternatives. How accessible is Cron to people? For the consumer, almost all aspects of computing are becoming ubiquitous: except programming. Tools like those provided by IFTTT are enabling people to do more with their devices. Someday, programming will also be ubiquitous (it probably won't even be called programming anymore).

> How accessible is Cron to people? This is an excellent point. Cron has to be one of the most difficult pieces of software to use, and it shouldn't be. When I first heard of IFTTT, I thought it was a joke. I thought: "Who needs these services when I can just spin up a VPS somewhere, write a couple of scripts and get the data I want where I need it"... How silly of me. I don't think my mother would like to take VPS S…

Are non-technical people really interested in scripting thing using IFTTT?

Re: With $30M More in Hand, IFTTT Looks to the Internet of Things

#93

Post by aw3c2 »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #89
aw3c2 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or the free-of-cost Llama https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kebab.Llam...

Not quite free, includes in app purchases.

Yes, free. I don't even know what additional features you can buy, I just use the free app.

Re: With $30M More in Hand, IFTTT Looks to the Internet of Things

#94

Post by lazerwalker »

Bug_Labs wrote: post #31
lazerwalker wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This exactly. I understand why they haven't done it, but the number of things I'd love to build as a hobbyist if only I could get a REST endpoint to trigger or enter a webhook URL to receive actions...

http://dweet.io can give you a rest endpoint. It is very easy and open source

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Dweet doesn't really solve the use case of "I want to connect my hobby app with existing third-party APIs without having to do manual integrations". It's great for home IoT setups, sure, but that's not the main use case I care about.

Re: With $30M More in Hand, IFTTT Looks to the Internet of Things

#95

Post by phireph0x »

Number one feature request for IFTTT: support multiple conditions, i.e. if this AND this AND this then that

As is stands now, for me, IFTTT is cute (I've played around with the app and website) but not really useful for many things without multiple conditions.

Re: With $30M More in Hand, IFTTT Looks to the Internet of Things

#96

Post by pinaceae »

nreece wrote: post #74

@Pinboard: "Right now the IFTTT business model is to charge one user $30M, rather than lots of users $2. The challenge will be with recurring payments" https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/505081162264363008

Maciej hit the nail on the head here. Funding does not equal working business model (yet).

Re: With $30M More in Hand, IFTTT Looks to the Internet of Things

#97

Post by tmarthal »

johnward wrote: post #92
jggonz wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How accessible is Cron to people? This is an excellent point. Cron has to be one of the most difficult pieces of software to use, and it shouldn't be. When I first heard of IFTTT, I thought it was a joke. I thought: "Who needs these services when I can just spin up a VPS somewhere, write a couple of scripts and get the data I want where I need it"... How silly of me. I don't think my mother would like to take VPS S…

Are non-technical people really interested in scripting thing using IFTTT?

They added a Surfline channel last October, so a whole slew of non-technical surfers have started using it to get surf alerts. Granted, that is just one audience, but it is something that people are using it for.

[Why Surfline doesn't provide alerts directly is another conversation]

Re: With $30M More in Hand, IFTTT Looks to the Internet of Things

#98

Post by JoeAtArrayent »

IFTTT is in an excellent position to help users and the IoT industry solve the problem of non-standardization of clouds/APIs. For now they just enable a lot of simple "recipes", but they can now go WAY BEYOND this and make the "everything app" that let's me view/control/mashup all of my devices and social media, etc. Having the huge ecosystem already nailed down puts them so far ahead of everybody. I would pay for this app, but many will not. They could be a great acquisition play for a company that wants to dominate at this layer and is late to the game.

Re: With $30M More in Hand, IFTTT Looks to the Internet of Things

#99

Post by taksintik »

johnward wrote: post #92
jggonz wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How accessible is Cron to people? This is an excellent point. Cron has to be one of the most difficult pieces of software to use, and it shouldn't be. When I first heard of IFTTT, I thought it was a joke. I thought: "Who needs these services when I can just spin up a VPS somewhere, write a couple of scripts and get the data I want where I need it"... How silly of me. I don't think my mother would like to take VPS S…

Are non-technical people really interested in scripting thing using IFTTT?

Yes.. us mortals want results. I personally don't care what script,API,recipe is used as long as the end result is the desired effect.

Re: With $30M More in Hand, IFTTT Looks to the Internet of Things

#100

Post by chickenandrice »

I really like automators like IFFT as they save the time from having to yet again keep up with breaking API changes from crappy company xyz (ex: Facebook). The problem with all of them seems they don't actually work reliably.

I tried IFFT a number of times. I'd love for it to work, but I only use it as a "it's ok if this breaks, missing data, etc." tool. Admittedly this is not 100% their fault as you are at the mercy of the shoddiness of other APIs, but bugs upon bugs and the less than reliable nature of IFFT actually executing things in a timely, durable manner makes it 100x less useful and impossible to build on top of for real apps.

I also feel that from a business point of view, relying on other people's services is consistently a trap. Whether it's social networks like Twitter, COTS like SharePoint, or something like Evernote, it's always a trap. These businesses can break your code at any time they choose, shut off your service, or simply go under. It takes a lot of work circumventing their bugs and terrible APIs as well. Hats off for trying, but I don't feel like a company like this is usually a good long-term investment.

Add to these problems the fact that most internet "typical" users would never use IFFT or "get it" the way it's presented today. Moreover, most programmers want more control, something more powerful, or can just do everything here better themselves exactly to their use cases. Not seeing how this company is worth much even if it is "useful." Profitable != useful many times.

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