CriticalAlert.ie new site for monitoring websites

sicruise

Hey All,

I've just launched a new service http://criticalalert.ie for monitoring websites and sending notifications via sms and email. Its cheap and cheerful but is using enterprise level monitoring systems on the backend.

Just thought I'd let you all know incase you are looking for something similar for your e-commerce sites or other critical services.

Thanks for reading this far

tricky D

A fiver a month is pretty expensive for the basic service which can easily be sourced for free by many other website monitoring services. E.g. http://www.site24x7.com/ and http://www.siteuptime.com/ and many more listed at http://www.google.ie/search?q=website+monitoring+service.

This is a classic example of freeconomics where the basic service tier is free and additional functionality is priced.

sicruise

That is a good point alright, we might see how it goes in the short-term. We may increase the basic features and create a new lesser free version.

D Hayes

Good idea. I agree with Tricky that there should be a freemium model in place. Get them hooked and attract paying customers with the add-ons.

Also, from a usability perspective - I don't like the way that the Contact Us menu item is a "mailto" link. It should link to a contact form with option to email. I don't have Outlook set up on my work computer, so clicking on the Contact Us link actually does nothing.

sicruise

Yeah already onto it, getting wordpress installed and templated too for our blog. Work in progress, spent the majority of the time getting the infrastucture and monitoring system in place.

tricky D

You've a lot more work to do on this.

The SEO is poor = poor business visibility
Blog is not on the same domain = poor for SEO
No marketing materials and poor service information = poor sales technique
No proper contact information = poor trust
Some bad practices = looks less than professional
Design isn't great and misses some elements = loss of functionality
Logo is poor = bad for barnding and identity

But the pricing is the killer. Compared to the ones I earlier referred to, you risk looking like a rip-off.

cormee

Tricky D is right, you'll definitely have to offer a free service.

Pingdom.com is a nice site that offers the same service - maybe get some ideas from them too?

amen

I was commenting on this before it got move from Development. Here goes:

Firstly, you need to get someone to the check the grammer on your website.

"There is a number of different type" should be "There are a number of different type"

"With the majority of projects that we work on we use mySQL which is a great database server when configured and managed properly" doesn't sound correct.


"The assumption with this article is that you are running a service that requires data integrity and high availability with taking a hit on performance and scalability" should that be "without taking a hit" ?

You have a link to DRBD but not to Hearbeat.

Singup now on the Critical alert blog doesn't work in FireFox.

Copyright is 2010.

There are spelling errors in the privacy statement.

Your terms of use does scrolls horizontally. (I'm have a 1280 *1024 so this needs to be fixed)

Terms of Use link shows the Privacy Policy.

Privacy Policy link shows the Term of Use.

If you are in Irish Company then by law you are obliged display directors, contact details and I think the Company No.

You appear to have "borrowed" the terms of use text. There are references to large multi national company in the terms of use. Which is rather funny considering the terms of use state use of anything on the web site including text is prohibited so I guess you are violating the large multi national company ?

How will you enforce the "Linking to this site" clause in the terms and conditions?

You have no jurisdiction specified in your terms and conditions(T&C).
So I have am user based in the USA I can use in a court in the USA. As you are an Irish based company ( I assume) you want to specify Ireland as jurisdiction.

I didn't sign up so I can't test you sign up process but I don't see any mention of SLAs, history of the checks you performed, what happens if your site goes down, what redundancy you have built in case of server, network, ISP, Phone company (sms) failure on your side. ?

Lack of SEO.

Register Button on Account Registration does not line up with the text.

Why do I need a company to register?


I also think my idea of high availability and yours are slightly different.

When I think if high availability I mean seamless failover, no time waiting MySQL to start up.

sicruise

Wow amen, thanks for all the feedback. Will get straight onto them, I'll let you know when we've updated.

On the blog entry, I know the language isn't perfect (I'll fix it) but it is just an option, it may not suit your model of HA but it could fit other systems. It wouldn't exist if it didn't

You'd probably be looking for something along the lines of a synchronous cluster or something similar.

saxoxymoron

Hi sicruise,

You may offer more flexible services for small business sites. you are offering less than other site services. I think you might known 100pulse website monitoring. I am using this site for my e-commerce business. they provides 5 monitoring for $5 with include 5 minute interval. if i use more monitoring serice, the price will decrease. so you can improve your services.can you provide any free tools ?

Eoin

Your basic package is very expensive; I don't think it offers good value at all.

Your next one up seems to be closer to reality, though you're competing with the likes of pingdom who are very popular and well established. I think you'll have to up the frequency of the checks to offer value; every 30 minutes isn't great.

Are your SMS alerts unlimited - have you thought about what happens if someone has a site that's up and down like a yo-yo? That could add up.

Are you running the checks from at least two different locations to ensure that any connection problems aren't at your end?

Unfortunately, I can't see anything here that would tempt me to move from www.UptimeRobot.com - free for up to 50 sites, with checks every 5 minutes.