Productivity apps and journalism: Putting IFTTT and other apps to work for you

Avery WilksMarch 27, 2015

IFTTT

• If This Then That• Web-based service that let users link apps –

called channels – together to form recipes• Channels include email, Dropbox, New York

Times, Evernote, etc• 166 channels available; number still growing– Was about 85 a year ago

IFTTT

• Seemingly endless recipe possibilities– Users can create their own recipes or choose from

public recipes that others have found useful• Option to deactivate recipes that become

useless or annoying• IFTTT app• Website walks users through each step of

making a recipe

Potential recipes: Birthday remindersThis helps if you’re bad with birthdays. You can create a recipe with IFTTT to send you a reminder via text or email that you need to wish someone a happy birthday. You could also set it up to send the message itself.

Potential recipes: WeatherA recipe to let you know when it’s raining or when the weather dips below 50 degrees.

Potential uses: avoiding awkward conversationsText a number “help me” to get a phone call from a bot that will give you an excuse to get out of an awkward conversation or encounter.

Potential uses: Nike+ fitness appYou can set up a recipe to send you a congratulatory call when you beat your personal best distance or time while running.

Journalistic uses: a spreadsheet of new tweets with a specific hashtagCan be good for reporting on an incident or event with an organized hashtag. #USCShooting, for example.

Journalistic uses: Tracking tweets from a locationHaving tweets posted from an intersection or street sent to you. Another great one for reporting on an event or incident. With the USC shooting, it could have been good to get a list of tweets sent from Assembly and College.

Journalistic uses: Saving time by linking appsThis takes one step out of the process for journalists trying to report on a story via social media. Instagram and Twitter don’t normally get along, and this forces them to work together.

Journalistic uses: Saving iOS photos to DropboxCan be useful in breaking news or covering incidents with just your phone. Now someone at your newsroom with access to your Dropbox can begin processing your photos before you get back.

Journalistic uses: Tracking and covering eventsWhen an event is added in a particular Facebook group you are in, this will automatically put that event in your Google calendar. Other uses could have the event texted to you, emailed, etc.

Journalistic uses: Budget meeting reminderCan set up recipes either through Google calendar, SMS, email or a variety of other channels to remind you when there’s going to be a budget meeting in your newsroom. Those are easy to forget.

You try it

• Set up an account and build your own

Other apps to check out

Cogi (free, but offers a membership)Recording app that allows you to avoid recording unimportant audio. It buffers the last few moments of audio so that when you hear a good quote coming, you can hit record and it’ll get the first few seconds. You then tap again to stop highlighting audio.

Cogi (continued)You can highlight as much as you want from an interview, back-to-back. Once done, you can tag, annotate and export your sessions.

EvernoteNote-taking software that lets you organize notes and contacts, syncing them across devices. Also recognizes text in pictures and eliminates need to transfer files across device.

Where to find learn more

• A few blogs and pages out there that track such things

• Easy to find with a simple Google search for “apps for journalists”– https://www.journalism.co.uk/news/10-apps-for-f

reelance-journalists/s2/a563196/

– http://valhoeppner.com/apps-for-journalists-summer-2014/