And if it's a ping thing, why would I pay 15 bucks per month and trust a third party when I can write my own script to dump failed ping results to my email?
I fail to see the distinguishing feature that I need monitorfor.me for.
The other benefit is that I offer (rather, will offer -- don't have it replicated yet) geographically distributed, redundant checking for up to 10 sites. This is a bit harder (and more expensive) to accomplish for the general developer.
Regarding the method of detection, I actually use a standard "fopen," to the hostname and port you specify, rather than a straight ping. In this way you could test specifically for your webserver (port 80) or SMTP server (25) rather than a generic ping. I even use it to test custom socket server platforms I have running.
Does that answer your questions? Change your mind about the value of the service?
Thanks!
Personally I think that anyone who feels they need this kind of service (e.g. a less-techy manager at a company) almost certainly has some go-to tech guy that could whip it up over lunch. If the company doesn't have such a guy, they're probably doomed anyway.
I just don't see much of a market here and I would be surprised if this thing, in its current iteration, would ever buy you ramen. You might be onto something, but I think you should aim higher.