Use IFTTT’s custom ESPN trigger channel to keep up with the Olympics

Over the past few years, there has been an explosion of cool web tools and APIs that allow users to do all kinds of neat stuff. Unfortunately, many of those tools exist in their own silos, unable to be connected in ways that their creators don’t approve of or haven’t thought of.

That’s where the sweet IFTTT service comes in. It’s digital glue for these various services, allowing them to you hook them together to get alerts and push data around the web and all sorts of other fun stuff.

Now, the service has announced a special ESPN Olympics Coverage Channel full to the brim with ways to keep up with the news coming out of the games, and there are some cool new triggers to play with.

These include new top stories and new stories from searches, if you’d like to keep track of specific sports or athletes. There are also triggers based on Olympic medals by country, Gold medal and world record, and New Gold medals by country.

Some really cool recipes have already been created using the triggers, you can see the whole what’s hot list here.

Some of my favorites include these:

• Send me a text message every time America wins a Medal
• Get all of the Olympics coverage tucked away in your Pocket account for later reading OR in Instapaper, if that’s your preference
• Send a tweet every time Britain wins a Gold OR the USA
• Send you a Pushover notification every time Usain Bolt makes the news
• And my favorite, get an email every time Michelle Jenneke is mentioned (here’s who she is)

The channel has a bunch of other nifty bits for you to check out, and the triggers are there if you’d like to build your own. If you come up with any that you think are cool, drop them in the comments below.

Image: Beth Rand