[olefoo]

I want ifttt to charge money or drop ads on the emails I have it send, or something that makes it so that the service itself will have staying power.

Also, box.net if you read HN, pay them to make adding you as a channel a priority.

[mikeknoop]

You might keep an eye on Zapier (our startup, https://zapier.com) if you're looking for a paid service. Similar functionality for a lot of things - still building and iterating.

[olefoo]

I can see what you're doing and even sort of admire the hustle. But in the grand scheme of things ifttt.com will always have the stronger brand.

For one thing, they work now, and I give them my auth proxies because they do useful things for me. I don't have to give them my email on the promise of a "Sneak Peak". (You may want to fix that, the word you want is "peek".)

And as a fast follower you come off as a bit sleazy; your efforts here and in the comments of the TC story, and the fancy landing page with no test drive make me think that the product isn't quite ready. And I'm not seeing the value add, if I need some of what you're offering, why do I need you to middleman when most of the services you name have their own APIs? Are you saving me enough time and headache that you're worth the bother? Why should I trust you with my business?

In my world, at the moment; IFTTT is a toy with potential, I want them to add more channels, I want them to open up the API so I as a service provider can register channels both inbound and outbound. I want them to have a business model that works because I like them and they are useful. I want to be able to set up searches with plexusengine or duckduckgo and pipe them to my flipboard; I want to copy the text of articles about things I care about to a folder in box.net; and based on what I've seen; IFTTT can do that.

Whereas I only have your vague promise that I might be able to do all that some time soon maybe with a product you're not willing to show the world yet. IFTTT seems focused and capable, you guys... seem like a hype machine in search of something that works.

[mikeknoop]

Yes you are right, sorry to make you follow up with so many paragraphs! We are still building our product and iterating. Just something to keep an eye out for in the next few months.

[olefoo]

Eh, the wall of text probably had more to do with the fact I was coding all morning and the verbal parts of my brain had gotten bored and restless. But seriously, if you're going to copy ifttt.com, copy the "focused, no frills, functional service.", not the core idea itself; or at least not so slavishly.