My solution is not enterprise and it’s not real time, but it will let me know in a reasonable amount of time (Montastic says it checks every 10 minutes or so, based on load). For me, that’s good enough right now because I mostly want to avoid overnight and weekend-long outages that may occur when I’m not checking my computer regularly.

The first step is to sign up at Montastic and set up a monitor for your web site. There’s no learning curve there … just register, type in a URL and Montastic will start monitoring right away. There’s a video screen cast available showing how easy it is to use. After setting up the monitors, Montastic provides a basic RSS feed — that’s where Yahoo! Pipes comes in.

Yahoo! Pipes Configuration for Montastic

The final step I took was to simply run the pipe, then tell Yahoo! to send me the output of the pipe to my cell phone whenever it changes. Since the pipe updates when there is a new failure item, I won’t get an SMS message every time Montastic checks the servers, but only when there is a new failure item.

I haven’t been running this solution for very long, but so far it looks to be a promising concept for keeping an eye on my servers — particularly when I’m going to be away for a while. I’d love to hear ideas about other ways to use Montastic or suggestions for other free website monitoring tools. What do you use?

A hundred objective measurements didn’t sum the worth of a garden; only the delight of its users did that. Only the use made it mean something.

Lois McMaster Bujold, A Civil Campaign, 1999

US science fiction author

Consider how much time you spend looking at analytics such as web traffic, Twitter followers, Facebook friends, or Technorati rank. Now consider the last positive comment you received about your work. Which is worth more?

If you work on increasing the the delight of your users, all the objective measurements will take care of themselves.

Within the past few years, however, the scope of what can be accomplished by relatively simple integration and reuse — especially on the web — has grown significantly. For example, one thing you’ve probably seen is the common use of those funny login pictures that ask you to type in letters to prove you’re human. For a while, every web site manager that wanted to have that functionality had to build it herself or hire someone to do it. Today it’s as simple as integrating with a service like reCAPTCHA. Additionally, you’ve probably seen plug-in functions for polls, guestbooks and many other standard web site features.

Recently, the pace of development in integration with major services has accelerated again. Google has released Google Friend Connect and Facebook has released Facebook Connect, both of which provide deep integration into existing social networks such as MySpace and Facebook. These integration platforms are still evolving but the implications are huge.

By properly integrating with the existing social networks, a site can provide rich social interactions within existing networks of friends without reinventing the wheel. And frankly with Facebook growing at a rate of 700,000 new users per day, the chance of your site competing head to head with them is extremely low. Don’t compete. Don’t reinvent. Integrate.

Integration is the key

Rather than trying to be the next Facebook, take your unique value to the existing networks on Facebook by bringing them to your site. Amazingly, it doesn’t take a degree in computer science to get some basic integrations working on your web site. Realistically, it might take a degree in computer science to do some more complex integrations (and to read the current documentation). To give a perspective, it took me several weeks (with an incredible support team) to integrate Facebook with Squidoo. To add the Facebook comment boxes on this blog took about 30 minutes.

That’s interesting, but so what?

I decided to disable the normal Wordpress comment system and just use Facebook’s new comment box today. The advantage is that when you post a comment on any page of this site, you also (optionally) post that same comment on your Facebook profile with an link back to my site. If you care enough to comment and tell your friends that you made a comment, it implies that you believe your friends will be interested in your opinion of my site. Assuming they are, they click through to my site, make a comment and the thread continues. Suddenly my site is a part of your social network and you didn’t have to go out of your way to make it so. I reduced a barrier and we all benefit.

The Facebook comment box is just one small piece of Facebook Connect. There are similar tools offered through Google Friend Connect for integrating with other social networks (including MySpace). As I said earlier, these tools are very new and rapidly evolving, but it’s very exciting. Right now if you’re managing a web site or building a new one (or just thinking about it) consider the list of features you’d love to have. If they include commenting, user registration, friend invitations and broad publication of user actions, you might be able to cross them off your to-do list and simply integrate.

Imagine

Consider how much energy you can focus on the core purpose of your web site if you don’t have to build technologies to compete against the clearly-dominant market leaders in social networking. I’m so excited about these emerging technologies that I can barely write this post. There’s so much more to talk about, so many examples of how to do it and so many ideas for where it can best be utilized.

Next steps…

This is going to be a core topic for the next few months (rough guess) as I build samples, give concrete examples and provide code to help you integrate with as little frustration as possible. I’m going to focus on Facebook Connect because I haven’t built anything more than a sample application using Google Friend Connect yet.

I’d love to get your feedback! What do you want to know? How would you use Facebook Connect if you could? Ask questions even if you’re not sure what the questions are!

My intent is to provide guidance and instruction on how and why to use emerging tools. I’m also going to acknowledge as often as possible when to do something completely different. If you see something that needs correction or amplification, let me know — like Rob did. He’s right too.

Let me just make sure that I’ve been clear about one thing. The best way to do something for your business is the way that it works best for you. Sounds like a bunch of consultant double-talk, doesn’t it? It’s true though. You can only succeed in the things that you believe in.

So whatever you read online, be rational and weight it with your current business strategy. Maybe it fits, maybe it doesn’t. Do it your way.

First off, it’s really important to know what Twitter is and what it can be for you and your small business. I highly recommend reading all of the Twitter related pages in my article, email is so 20th century. Twitter is like a lot of things you already use. It’s like email and it’s like instant messaging and it’s like texting, but it’s not exactly any of those things.

It’s sort of like email

Twitter lets you communicate with many people quickly in the same way that you might CC or BCC many people in an email message. You send one message and many people receive it. You don’t know for sure if anyone reads the message, but those who do can optionally respond to your message, contact you privately or forward the message (re-tweet). Twitter is different from email in that you don’t manage a list of addresses. You simply post a message and all of your followers get your message. You don’t have to manage a list at all, you just send messages.

It’s sort of like instant messaging or texting

If you download one of the many desktop tools for Twitter, your experience with Twitter can be a little like using instant messaging. The main difference is that as messages arrive, they’re not always personal and there is little expectation for a direct response. However, there is an expectation that the Twitter stream (the collection of messages) is a conversation. If you’re only talking, but not responding or forwarding, you’re not fully participating in the Twitter ecosystem.

Getting started

I highly recommend getting a personal Twitter account today to start connecting with personal friends, coworkers and associates. Twitter will help you find your friends after you sign up. Get an application like Twhirl to help you use Twitter and just see what happens.

Next steps

Once you’re comfortable with the concept of Twitter, it makes sense to figure out how to use it in your small business. For many people, the person and the business are a single brand — such as Robert Scoble (@scobelizer*) or Guy Kawasaki (@guykawasaki). If you are trying to build yourself as a brand — maybe you’re a network marketer, life coach, consultant or contractor — then using your personal Twitter account for your business efforts is the right idea.

If you have a small business that isn’t just you, it’s probably a good idea to create another Twitter account for your business. Yes, you can have more than one Twitter account. This strategy provides you a simple way to differentiate your professional brand from your personal interests, just as would would do with your email accounts, web sites and blogs. Using Twitter this way ensures that people who are following your professional brand (because you regularly tweet* about the stock market, for example) aren’t distracted by the personal tweets you provide your friends (what you had for lunch).

No matter what approach to take, it’s important to realize that being an active Twitter user requires effort and time. In the same way that you maintain your web site, write new blog posts, send emails to clients and customers, you will need to maintain the relationships you develop through Twitter. The great news is that this can be very straightforward. If you blog, make sure you tweet the title and URL of your blog post. If you update your web site, tweet the news with the URL. If you send out an email newsletter, post the message to your web site or blog and tweet it. Explore the available Twitter tools to make sure you get the most out of your Twitter experience.

Even more…

Once you’re comfortable with the integration of Twitter into your existing business practices, it’s time to take it to the next level. Twitter allows you to make quick, tiny announcements any time without the need to necessarily update your web site or add a new blog post. If it’s relevant to your audience, tweet it. If you’re an insurance company, your tweets can include information about rate changes or new coverage options. If you’re a mortgage broker, you tweets can include mortgage rates. You should tweet new product offerings, new service terms, updated office hours, updated contact information. These aren’t the kinds of things you would necessarily prepare an entire newsletter for, so you simply tweet them today and update them in your monthly newsletter at the appropriate time.

Incoming tweets

Twitter users expect a two-way conversation. Expect to receive direct messages requesting support or offering suggestions. If your service is great, people will tweet about it. If it’s bad, expect the same. The key to succeeding with Twitter is the same as with any communications tool — you really need to be there. If you don’t want or expect to have conversations, Twitter will be as useful as spamming.

Dell case study

Dell has used Twitter very effectively in their corporate strategy. Some of the keys to their success are discussed in the following video.

Remember when you’re watching the above video that Dell wasn’t always so involved in new media. Even the biggest companies are new to new technology trends. It takes some time to become comfortable and to integrate what’s happening, but Twitter is definitely happening and you have the opportunity to participate.

* Some terms and conventions

• Twitter is the name of the service, the act of sending a message is sending a tweet or tweeting
• A tweet is a message sent through Twitter
• A twitter account is often displayed as @username with a link to the user page on Twitter, for example, my account is displayed as @RealNerd

• How do you get more Twitter followers/Facebook friends?
• How do people find your blog?
• How can I increase my site traffic?
• Do you (or Can I) make money on the Internet?

Sometimes the questions are more like:

• How do you do (insert technical thing) on your site/blog?
• How do you make time for blogging?
• Why do you blog?

The first set of questions really isn’t all that interesting to me. There are lots of ways to get more traffic, friends, or whatever you think you want — and there are a zillion sites that will tell you how to get more money using the web (be wary). But until you know why you need more friends, visitors or followers, it really doesn’t matter. Lots of people don’t really know why they want more, they’ve just have a belief system that tells them that more is better.

The second set of questions is much more interesting to me. These questions come more from a perspective of “how can I improve” than from a “what’s in it for me” perspective. Only you can figure out what you want — even if it takes a while — but if you’re online only because it’s going to somehow magically start putting money in your pocket, you’ll be disappointed. When you know what you’re trying to accomplish and you believe in it, you can start moving forward.

When you know

When you really know what your goals are, you’ll realize that the first questions aren’t the right questions. You’ll stop asking, “How can I get a lot more followers?” You’ll start asking, “How can I ensure that my readers are happy?” or “What can I give my true fans for supporting me from the beginning?” You’ll stop worrying so much about website traffic for the sake of the numbers and spend more time engaging, creating and improving.

There’s no secret sauce for success in any business except what you make yourself. What I have done in the past probably won’t work exactly for you. I can’t simply copy Seth or Brian and suddenly have the same level of success, because we’re coming from different places with different perspectives. You can learn from the best and apply it in your efforts, but the end result it yours.

Reality check
Overnight successes rarely happen overnight. It’s going to take some time, so buckle in and enjoy the ride.

Well, simply stated, it’s because the times they are a changin’. Back in the old days (circa last year), building bridges to your web site was something you did essentially by yourself using technology. Most of your efforts were centered on SEO (search engine optimization), advertising and building more technology (such as doorway pages) to increase your web footprint. All these efforts were combined to make sure that all of the little robots that scour the web would bring more humans to your sites. The problem is that the robots don’t care … and they’re not friends with the humans.

Fast forward to this moment
The web changes quickly and so do the people using it. When I first discovered Google, I could literally spend hours searching — just to see what would appear. Today, I certainly still Google a lot, but I also have a much more powerful method for getting information: I ask other people. I trust my friends and I know how they can help. I also trust my online social groups and I like their recommendations. So very often now, I go to my social networks and ask the questions.

Just taking a quick peek at my Twitter stream right now, I see the following list of tips, news, questions and feedback:

• “How to use StumbleUpon – A Step by Step Guide”
• “The Helium 3 on the Moon and on asteroids could be mined to give us stable nuclear fusion and …”
• “Who should be in the new A-Team film?”
• “Is Google doing anything with GrandCentral? I have an account & nothing has changed since the beginning (except I can’t invite any more)”
• “I really want to help my community by implementing an economic gardening program. However, I’m not independently wealthy. Ideas?”

People have questions. People have answers. People have recommendations.

Your web site might be an island because you’re not enabling people to question, answer and recommend. If you don’t enable your readers, the barriers to sharing are high enough that it doesn’t happen. Have you made it easy for your readers to recommend your site (or page) on Twitter, Digg, Delicious, Facebook, etc.? Do you have a comment form? Do you also provide an RSS feed and a Twitter account to follow?

You see, it’s not about technology, it’s about people. You can work and work and work to feed the robots, but the work of enabling personal recommendations is better. As your visitors become fans, they’ll recommend your services and products through their social network.

Make it easy
If I have to choose between recommending a site that provides me a link to share and a site that I have to manually copy and paste information to share it, I prefer the first. The great news is that enabling sharing on your site isn’t as hard as it used to be — and it’s getting easier. Services like ShareThis and lijit provide turnkey solutions for sharing, aggregating and searching your sites. Feedburner turbocharges your RSS feeds and provides for advertising revenue within your feeds. Social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace are providing solutions for comment forms and other social tools that work on your site with little or no coding required.

As these tools evolve — and they certainly will — strong interconnectedness with communities of people will be a primary differentiator of web sites. As such, niche sites will have an increased opportunity for success because they won’t be competing in the SEO world, but in the community world and the community will always care more than the robots.

Coming soon…
Within the next two to three weeks, I’ll be showing concrete examples of how to socially enable your web site with some of the drop-in tools listed above and also with some of the more technically intense options available today. Stay tuned!

Online business is just business.

The problem relates to communicating impersonal messages en masse. I’m not talking about spam. I’m talking about receiving notices about product recalls or getting the latest information about my cell phone coverage or being notified about coupons from my favorite restaurants. The problem with email is that my desire to participate in mass emails from relevant sources decreases over time.

For example, I used to drive a Toyota. Back then I wanted to know about Toyota-specific product recalls, service options, etc. Now I drive a Nissan. I no longer care about the Toyota emails. Same thing with home warranties, insurance, software products, book clubs, political movements, etc. We move, buy new products, switch carriers, change our opinions or just lose interest. But the email keeps coming. And sometimes opting out is more difficult than just marking the sender as spam and letting the email tool do its job.

Opt-in email isn’t the solution, but opt-in is

Opt-in email never felt right to me. Opt-in is so easy, but opt-out is not. I understand. Companies don’t want to lose you. The problem is that they already lost you; they just don’t know it. Everybody loses.

The new opt-in solutions have been available for long enough to mature, they’re just not as ubiquitous as email … yet. The first two opt-in solutions you should be using for your business are RSS and Twitter.

RSS

If you have a traditional web site, you can still produce RSS feeds. You should. If you have a blog, you most likely produce RSS automatically, but are you really using it? Are you making it easy for your readers to subscribe? Have you explained the benefits? Have you pointed them to basic instructions about how to get the most out of RSS? If not, why not?

Twitter

Twitter has been called microblogging and I think that’s a great term. You can use Twitter without a blog or you can combine Twitter with your blog. In any case, if you haven’t started using Twitter, it’s time to get on board. Twitter is two-way communications like email, chat or blogging with comments. Here are some great articles to get up to speed with Twitter in general:

• The Beginner’s Guide to Twitter
• Conversating on Twitter
• Twitter (Wikipedia)

Twitter introductory video

An example

I recently had lunch at Chevy’s in Mesa. While we were there, the waiter provided me with their new opt-in email form and explained that by filling out the form, I’ll get one free appetizer, birthday coupons and general email coupons. Yay for free stuff!

The first thing I said to my wife after the waiter walked away is “this is the perfect example of how a company should be using Twitter.” In the form/email scenario, there are so many problems:

1. The company has to print a form
2. Someone has to fill out a form
3. Someone else has to enter the form contents into a computer
4. The recipient must ensure that desired emails don’t go into the spam bucket
5. The company has to deal with the hassles of mass emailings (this is huge)

The above list doesn’t cover what happens when I decide I don’t want the mailings anymore, or what to do if I change email addresses or email programs or spam settings. It also doesn’t address the huge problems that the company will deal with by managing a large email database.

With Twitter the scenario goes like this:

1. The company either prints small business cards or has a single large banner made that says “Follow us on Twitter: @whatever”

That’s it. If Chevy’s used Twitter like this, I would be able to follow them for as long as I’m interested and unfollow as soon as it’s not relevant for me anymore. Chevy’s gets to alert me (and all followers) whenever there’s a product launch or when they have a promotion. They can still send my free appetizer for following them because they get notified when new followers arrive. The upside is everywhere: no data entry or data management, no email hassles, no customer problems related to spam reports, easy opt-in and opt-out and the flexibility to message as frequently as needed.

What did I miss?

I find it interesting that people spend so much money on professional seminars, training, books, multimedia presentations, etc. and yet avoid talking to the experts closest to them. In some rare cases, asking for professional advice may be socially unacceptable. For example, bothering your attorney neighbor for free legal tips isn’t normally considered to be in good taste. However, in the overwhelming majority of cases, your neighbor wants to tell you about what she does and share her expertise.

Flipping the question
Now consider your offering. You need customers, clients, readers, viewers — fans. You need people to care about what you’re providing. You’re just waiting for your neighbor to ask what you do so you can use your elevator pitch. Right?

Participating and engaging in conversations is the best way to transfer knowledge. It doesn’t necessarily matter if the conversation is real time and face to face or if it takes place over weeks and thousands of miles. It only matters that there is a conversation. Starting a conversation is simple — just ask a question. If you’re genuinely interested in knowing the answer, you’ll learn much more than you were expecting.

The magical conclusion
In elementary school I often heard this great advice: “If you want a friend, you need to be a friend.” Doesn’t that same advice apply here? In the world of the unreachable, we can’t expect people to listen to us if we’re not listening to them. It’s a conversation, not a seminar — conversations are always more engaging.