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How to get alerted of new Netflix 'watch instantly' titles
Receiving an alert when a new title is added to Netflix's instant section would be a dream come true, wouldn't it? Great news: dreams really do come true!
We previously told you about IfThisThenThat (ifttt) when it was in a closed beta, and had a limited selection of channels and triggers.
Fortunately, the list of channels and triggers is growing by the day.
Using an RSS feed, you can bring in a lot of other sites and services that aren't currently available as a channel on ifttt. One example of a service you can bring into ifttt via RSS is Netflix.
Before we begin, sign up for an ifttt account if you don't already have one. After you have an account, sign in and follow the steps below.
From the main page, click on Create Task. You will then see the above item. Click on This to add the first ingredient to our recipe.
We need to select the trigger for our task, in this case it's a Feed.
On the next screen, select new feed item. You will then be asked to enter the URL for the feed you want to set up as the trigger.
Of course, you will need to know the URL for the Netflix watch instant RSS feed, which can be found (along with a list of all Netflix feeds) here. To save you some time, here's the feed URL http://www2.netflix.com/NewWatchInstantlyRSS.
After you have entered the URL, click on Create Trigger.
Now that our trigger is set up, click on That to set up the alert method.
As you can see, there is a pretty impressive list of actions that can be triggered when a new item is added to any RSS feed, right now we are only concerned with the e-mail trigger. If you would prefer to receive a text message, phone call, or even an IM from the ifttt bot, click on the respective thumbnail and follow the prompts to complete setup.
You will then be given the option to customize the look and feel of the e-mail. If you aren't sure, you can always come back and change this section later. Click on Create Action when you are satisfied.
You will then be given a summary view of the task you just created, if everything looks like it's supposed to, click on Create Task.
Now, when Netflix adds a new title to watch instantly, you will receive an e-mail (or whatever alert you have setup) alerting you to the title and provide some info about it.
(Credit:
Screenshot by Jason Cipriani)
Again, the possibilities are endless with ifttt, whether it's with Netflix or some other Web site. Play around with all of the triggers and services, or browse through the new Recipe catalog to get a better idea of what exactly you can do.
