If you’ve wished that there were a way to keep track of your extensive reading in between tadoku rounds as easily as with the tadokubot, there is a very simple way to do just that. All you need is a Google account and an IFTTT (If This Then That) account, both free. IFTTT is a very useful free web service that allows you to automate a wide variety of things. In this case, we send it a text message tagged with the reading medium you wish to track, and the service adds a row to a spreadsheet in your Google Drive. Then all that’s left is to put a couple of simple formulas in the spreadsheet to total things up.

A link to the IFTTT recipe is here.  Adapt as needed to add media. Use an additional space between three pipes (||| |||) to place the update in the correct column. The ||| is the cell divider, so ||| ||| places an empty cell. If you want the data for a certain hashtag in the fourth column, for example, your action would look like:

{{ReceivedAt}} ||| ||| ||| {{MessageNoHashtag}}

In my case, text messages to the US cost me extra, so if you’re in the same situation I recommend you use textPlus or a similar free texting service. You can even use that from an iPod Touch. It’s possible to use Google Talk chat messages as a trigger, but I’ve never seen the IFTTT bot actually online, so it’s best to stick with text messages.