
IFTTT Needs Webhooks, Stat - jazzychad
http://blog.jazzychad.net/2012/08/05/ifttt-needs-webhooks-stat.html
======
johns
Posting my comment here as well:

We're definitely interested in powering the internet of things and webhooks
will definitely play a part of that. It remains to be seen if we need to have
a generic hook channel to make that possible. I suspect there's one at some
point in the future, but I think there are some better ways to address the
same problems in the short term that appeal to a broader audience.

As far as getting developers on board goes:
[http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/24/ifttt-adds-box-and-plans-
ne...](http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/24/ifttt-adds-box-and-plans-new-channel-
platform-intended-to-connect-business-apps/)

And I can confirm that there is indeed a list of channels we want to build and
that a webhook channel is on it.

~~~
alexatkeplar
There's a big strategic risk in you guys offering web hooks: it facilitates
competitors piggybacking on your event detection and building high value
response services that compete directly with your own. In other words, you
become a piece of costly-to-maintain middleware and others capture the real
consumer value.

~~~
robbles
Good point - it seems like they take this risk into account in the design of
their service in a couple of other ways too, like in the triggered actions.
For example, you can't send a message to an arbitrary phone or Google Talk
account, only your own personal, verified accounts. It would be super useful
if you could send more customized messages to anywhere, but then you could
build entire services on top of IFTTT.

~~~
alexatkeplar
That is interesting. It seems like the safest thing for them to do would be to
offer all of these features (including webhooks) in a "pro" offering which has
a monthly fee (probably based on number of notifications). So they treat any
developer who wants webhooks as a would-be B2B customer.

------
mikeknoop
An alternative: you can do this verbatim with Zapier
[https://zapier.com/zapbook/twitter/webhook/179/post-
twitter-...](https://zapier.com/zapbook/twitter/webhook/179/post-twitter-
mentions-webhook/)

~~~
pbiggar
Nice SEO juice. Did you manually make that page, or are they auto-generated?

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recroad
> Last night, I needed a way to be notified each time I posted a new tweet.

Mind. Blown.

~~~
timdorr
Poor wording. It should be:

> Last night, I needed a way for a _webhook_ to be notified each time I posted
> a new tweet.

Tweets can come from a variety of sources, so hooking in at the source isn't
always possible or even reasonable.

~~~
jazzychad
Yes this is what I meant.

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thechut
I couldn't agree with this more, opening up a general API would be a great
step forward for IFTTT.

I recently also wanted to add integration with IFTTT for something I am
working on. However, instead of writing a blog post and putting it on HN, I
contacted IFTTT. They responded very quickly and were interested in helping me
add my own channel if my project became a product. While this may not be as
easy as providing open webhooks, I think it's a viable alternative which
better fits their model of being focused on the end user, not developers.

------
dmor
IFTTT seems to be appealing to the non-developer "configurator" person quite
well, so maybe they don't want to complicate things by adding something so
technical. I would guess you're feature request is not in the favorable half
of the 80/20 equation for them as a business

~~~
jazzychad
Could be. That was what my 2nd-to-last paragraph was about. I just think that
opening up that output channel to let developers run free with event data will
produce some very interesting and creative uses that perhaps IFTTT hadn't
considered and let people create one-off solutions for services that IFTTT
doesn't yet support (such as my need last night, which I solved (sadly) with
yet another Twitter poller).

~~~
gfodor
Your post should have then been "IFTTT should cater to developers" not "IFTTT
needs webhooks." IFTTT's entire thesis is that non-developers should be able
to 'program' computers. Just because you want webhooks and they would be cool
doesn't mean IFTTT should work on features that go against the entire premise
of their product -- and if you think they _should_ , this is the primary
argument you should be making, not if they should be adding feature X or Y.
Surely if IFTTT's target market shifted from the general public to developers,
there would be many things developers would want, and webhooks is only one of
them.

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robertskmiles
I think the "IFTTT is aimed at non-developers" argument is just dumb. Add a
webhook channel, and people who don't know what webhooks are will just ignore
it, the same way they ignore all the other channels for things they don't use.
Noone is going to be more confused by the webhooks channel than they are
already confused by the weemo channel.

Put a [for web developers] tag on it if you must, but a man shouldn't be
denied steak just because a baby can't chew it.

~~~
johns
We are a small, young startup and we have to be very particular about the
things that we focus on. It's really hard to say "no" or "not now" sometimes.
When I started one of the first things I thought for sure I would push for was
a webhook channel. As a developer I want it myself. As I become more familiar
with the people who use IFTTT I don't think it's the right thing to do for
them right now. This doesn't preclude us from doing it in the future, but I
think there are some better ways to solve the same problems that will cater
more to the audience who has identified with the service.

------
joshsegall
I was interested in what webhooks are, but there was no link in the article.
Aha! I thought to myself, I'll look it up on the internet, and behold there
was webhooks.org, which I assume is its home. Going there I find no
description of what it is, a broken link to the blog, and a wiki that does not
exist. So I guess it's not ready for primetime?

~~~
oasisbob
Can imagine those sites suffered bit-rot once the technique became widespread,
they're very useful, and there's not much to them.

A webhook is just a callback that notifies an arbitrary URL when an event
occurs. A good explanation is here:

[http://timothyfitz.wordpress.com/2009/02/09/what-webhooks-
ar...](http://timothyfitz.wordpress.com/2009/02/09/what-webhooks-are-and-why-
you-should-care/)

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zenocon
Hi, we are building something similar. We had a Kickstarter a few months back
that did not reach our funding goal, but we are still forging ahead.
[http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/daisyworks/internet-
your...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/daisyworks/internet-your-thing-0)
\-- it involves connecting hardware / arduino like sensors / controls to an
IFTTT-like system.

Thing is...there are two of us building this part-time with day jobs /
families. We have a really good start, but we really lack the time / resources
to take it to the next level. If you are interested in this kind of thing,
please drop me a note at davis@daisyworks.com -- I would love to recruit some
more passionate people to get involved and make it into what _you_ want it to
be.

------
Splines
I love webhooks - they provide a neat portable layer between services and
devices.

Currently I have Growl set up on my desktop computer and run a number of
desktop programs that talk to it. I have Growl set up to ping Prowl
(previously Notifo, RIP), which in turn does a push notification to my iPhone.

Things like getting an email directly to me, or having something fail my
continuous integration build system, or even my son logging onto our home
computer hit my iPhone, and it's _so_ damn easy to put together.

I was frustrated with the limitations of IFTTT - I still rely on it for a few
things, but just running a simple .net program on my desktop computer that is
on all the time gets me 90% of the way there. (Most of my use-cases are "if x
happens, I want to know about it", the esoteric [to me] scenarios like saving
every gmail to my dropbox or something are not interesting to me).

------
jwblackwell
Obviously it's a hack but it wouldn't be that hard to set up an IFTTT email
alert to a dedicated account, parse the email for a specified code you set
when creating the alert and then do whatever you wanted...

