What do you do when Twitter is down?
Why not use pingdom for monitoring like Twitter does.
http://www.pingdom.com/reports/wx4vra365911/check_overview/?...
We use pingdom at 3b and love it.
Using Twitter to Send Alerts When Your Site Goes Down
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Re: Using Twitter to Send Alerts When Your Site Goes Down
#22What do you do when Twitter is down? Why not use pingdom for monitoring like Twitter does. http://www.pingdom.com/reports/wx4vra365911/check_overview/?... We use pingdom at 3b and love it.
gah, what is with the 800's ms average response time?
is it safe to say that's pingdom's connection?
Re: Using Twitter to Send Alerts When Your Site Goes Down
#23Re: Using Twitter to Send Alerts When Your Site Goes Down
#24My site, with my 8 dollar a month shared hosting plan, is down FAR less than Twitter.
Twitter hasn't had any serious downtime for months.
Serious downtime and downtime are not the same, and if twitter is down for a few minutes that means a few minutes of not receiving an SMS because you're routing your services through them.
Re: Using Twitter to Send Alerts When Your Site Goes Down
#25Re: Using Twitter to Send Alerts When Your Site Goes Down
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think his point was that twitter-to-sms isn't always as prompt as you want it to be.
YMMV, but in my experience twitter would be prompter than the typical SMS service from a big carrier. More reliable, too.
Are you arguing that twitter-to-sms (not sms-to-twitter, which i have never experienced lag with) is a quicker trip than sms-to-sms? My provider is Verizon and my experience is VERY different than what you assert.
And this is coming from someone who has completely bought into the "OMGTWITTER" phenomenon. ;)
Re: Using Twitter to Send Alerts When Your Site Goes Down
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
Twitter hasn't had any serious downtime for months.
Actually it is very simple: adding Twitter to the mix adds one more "moving part". Shooting a simple email and then multiplexing it (via aliasing, for instance) to X recipients is easier and more reliable. Create an address like my-startup-site-is-down@gmail.com and forward to X other destinations from there (including Twitter if you want), and send your notifications to that address using standard 20+ year old proto…
It's slightly more nuanced than you're making it sound. For one thing, Twitter may very well be more reliable than your email system (YMMV). For another, email doesn't generally beep loudly and alert you.
The idea that an additional part automatically weakens a system is reductive. It doesn't necessarily weaken it at all.
Re: Using Twitter to Send Alerts When Your Site Goes Down
#28Re: Using Twitter to Send Alerts When Your Site Goes Down
#29Re: Using Twitter to Send Alerts When Your Site Goes Down
#30imho, twitter (and others like it) will morph into a public messaging protocol. as more and more people use it the signal will get drowned by the noise. eventually the only worthwhile way of using twitter will be via enhanced filtering rules for meaningful information from people you know and follow. twitter is really like a public pastebin with great api support which will allow you to command and control computers…
If the signal gets drowned out by the noise, that's your fault as a user. You either follow too many people or follow the wrong people. Twitter essentially acts as a whitelist-based messaging platform. Note the word "whitelist"
as programmers, we always know it is "the users fault." but as users, we expect a service to have value and "just work." i do specifically mention getting meaningful information from following users you know.
but how do you find those users? enhanced filtering keyed on multiple vectors will become the only useful mechanism for consuming information from not only those you dont follow but also from those you do.
as it stands i tweet on both professional and personal topics. and so do those that i follow. now if i know these people personally than i may be interested in their personal tweets. but if i do not, than i dont want non-relevant tweets cloggin up my feed.
enhanced clients with better, granular consumption controls are the only way forward.