With the arrival of its first mobile app, IFTTT is ready for small business

Keeping up with the growing list of social networks, essential apps, and incoming data streams that have become part of modern online life is difficult for even a Web dabbler. Getting them talking to one another is even tougher, which is where tools like “If This Then That,” or simply “IFTTT,” have become invaluable.
This hacker’s dream of a Web service was developed to help ease the translation of data from one network to another, and now IFTTT has released its first mobile app, for the iPhone platform. The mobile app enhances the utility of IFTTT for all of its users, but its release is also a good time to take a hard look at whether IFTTT can now be put to use in the business world.

IFTTT is so valuable because certain networks, like Facebook, are famously closed off, so doing something that should be simple—like saving your photos to your hard drive or republishing videos on YouTube—can be extremely tedious and time-consuming.

Some of the site’s most popular recipes are mostly personal in structure. (If my Facebook profile picture changes, change my Twitter profile picture to match. If I take a photo on my iPhone, send me a copy of it via email.)

IFTTT remedies this by revolving around a simple design conceit. Using an abbreviated scripting language, users develop “recipes,” each of which takes a single data input and does one single action to or with it. For example: If I like a photo on Instagram, then save that photo to my Dropbox folder. That’s it. It sounds simple, and it is, but it saves you the hassle of doing it for yourself. You don’t even have to write these recipes from scratch. Tens of thousands are available for download from the site’s database. (You can get the Instagram to Dropbox recipe here.)
But an increasing number of recipes have a serious business bent. Want to
back up your mobile device contacts to a Google Docs spreadsheet? Auto-send starred Gmail to Evernote? Link a Blogger account to a Facebook Business Page? There’s, to borrow a phrase, a recipe for that.

And of course, you can always script your own recipes to do more. Savvy businesses might use IFTTT to send a text message to the customer support team if the company receives a mention on Twitter. Or IFTTT can be used to simplify the hassles of keeping various networks up to date. Tumblr, Instagram, Flickr, and more can all be synced up—one at a time, of course.

The iOS version of the IFTTT app doesn’t really do anything the Web version of the system doesn’t do already, but it does make recipe creation and management a more flexible, do-it-anywhere activity. One of the curious things about digging into IFTTT is that you never know where the idea for a killer recipe will strike. But as more and more of both our social and business lives becomes mobile, that serendipity is less and less likely to occur when you’re sitting at your desk. 

BlackBerry ready to enable India to track messages

BlackBerry is ready to provide Indian law enforcement authorities with a way to track emails and email attachments and check whether messages sent over BlackBerry Messenger have been delivered or read.

Authorities will also be able to intercept web-browsing facilities to end a long-standing dispute over the interception of communications on BlackBerry devices, according to the Times of India.

The Indian government has put pressure on BlackBerry for access to its messaging services because of concerns that terrorists could use encrypted services to coordinate attacks.

In the face of mounting pressure, BlackBerry offered to enable lawful interception in its security architecture in January 2011.

The imminent deployment of the interception system was revealed in a leaked government document.

However, the paper noted that officials appear to have dropped demands that the firm also make it possible to access business emails sent over BlackBerry Enterprise Server.

In 2010, India threatened to impose a ban on BlackBerry devices, saying law enforcement authorities needed to be able to decrypt and read messages sent by suspected terrorists.

But BlackBerry has always maintained that it does not have a way of accessing encrypted corporate information sent through its services.

The Times of India said the government now appears to be "content with just knowing" who is sending messages using the BlackBerry service.

A BlackBerry spokesperson told the paper that the company had delivered a solution that enabled India's wireless carriers to address their lawful access requirements for its consumer messaging services.

These include BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) and BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS) email.

"The lawful access capability now available to BlackBerry's carrier partners meets the standard required by the government of India for all consumer messaging services offered in the Indian marketplace,” the company said in a statement.

“We also wish to underscore, once again, that enabling lawful access does not extend to BlackBerry Enterprise Server," the statement added.

According to the leaked document, nine of the 10 telecom networks offering BlackBerry services are in the process of making it possible for authorities to carry out intercepts.