Resourceful Laggard

I got my new phone a month ago. It was about time – I was probably the last business student in my faculty not walking around with a Blackberry, iPhone or some other slick cell phone. It wasn’t that my old phone was incapable or I had phone-envy… as much as I advocate for distraction-free classes, I needed to make sure I was on top of my emails without needing to lug out my laptop every single time. My older cell phone had very limited browser capabilities and my current (contract) phone plan didn’t include data. Being fed up with limitations, I scavenged around for ways to beat the system… and I stumbled across IFTTT!

IFTTT stands for “if this then that.” In essence (if used excessively), I find IFTTT to be a bit like the “synchronize” function on crack. IFTT allows users to make personal “recipes” of how they want an action from one service or “channel” affect one or more other channels of their choice to work.

For example, if I would like to receive an email notification whenever a new job posting is triggered or appears on Craiglist, then the recipe would be: IF a Craigslist(THIS) posting is triggered, THEN my Gmail(THAT) will receives the new posting.

IFTTT currently has over 35 different channels available to be synchronized however users would like to mix and match. Popular channels include Facebook, Twitter, Google Reader, Gmail, SMS, Tumblr, WordPress, Youtube and Dropbox. Users can also customize the functions of the channels to filter and receive only the notifications they want. For myself, I made a recipe that was like:

Free mobile email notification for the win!

I thought IFTTT’s first-liner on their website was great: Put the internet to work for you. I can see how businesses really take advantages of the automated functions of these recipes when dealing with their social media interactions and streamline their online web presence. For example, whenever a new picture is uploaded for a Facebook contest, the same photo is saved in the business’s Dropbox and a responding Tweet message is sent out.

Although I no longer use that recipe (because I’m in love with my new white Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc…) I can see how IFTTT can still be really relevant. It can be useful for businesses or for the loud and proud (and resourceful) “laggard”  individuals of the smartphone product life cycle still refusing to pay for free functions.

Website Building For Dummies

Last term, I found myself taking a history course in UBC with students of various majoring backgrounds. When I learned that one of our term projects called for showcasing our content on a website, I grumbled inside. I foresaw myself spending hours just trying to make the aesthetics of the website convey the already prepared content. Interestingly, during my internal debate between using Wordpress or Blogspot, I found a prevailing amount of students in the room using a site-builder called “Wix“.

Wix is a free website-builder. The beauty of Wix is that it requires no programming. Users like me, who have very little website-building background, do not need any hard skills to build an aesthetically appealing website. The created website is very intuitive – drag and drop, click and type, insert and delete – right on the website layout. As well, it is search-engine friendly.

Wix is applicable to businesses who are looking into starting or updating their websites. For a monthly fee, Wix offers businesses (or individuals) a unique domain, unlimited bandwidth, Google Analytics site stats, hosting, extra storage, Wix support and no ads.

I think Wix can be a great tool for businesses starting to look into how they want to establish their online presence. Because of its user-friendliness, anyone can change/update it. This eliminates the scary and inflexible reliance of that one single person in the company. The Wix support team also helps by directing users to other appropriate website support functions such as more specialized widgets or email support not offered on Wix. Furthermore, Wix users can hire from a list of available freelance designers for even more customization.

The downside of using Wix may include the difficulty of potentially moving the website off the Wix hosting site and being limited to what is currently allowed to function on the Wix websites (such as establishing a more complex E-business structure). Nonetheless, for companies who have a bit of website-envy, no staff with the hard skills and a little bit of marketing budget to splurge, Wix may be the right solution.