whoa, +1 uptown. i'm sort of bummed that I didn't know about that before. Seems like I should have found that.
1. Have you used this (and did it work)? I just tried registering an alert and I never got the notification from yahoo, despite the fact that the alert condition was met. I was also able to set an alert to get notified when SPY fell to $500 (currently trading 108.70). I also got a 404 in the 3rd step of the phone registration process, but it somehow saved the number anyways.
2. I got a 404 in step 3 when i registered my cell phone to receive alerts.
I guess I'm trying to figure out if this service is still operated at all by yahoo. Of course, it could be equally damning if yahoo decided that its not worth supporting and just nexted the product.
Regarding brokerages offering alert capabilities: I'd be interested in finding out more. I use Interactive Brokers personally and Quote Sentinel was originally actually a python script hooked up to the IB api.
Obviously trying to monetize a service that is being offered for free by many more established parties isn't the smartest idea... Can't really make excuses for why I didn't find that earlier though (functional or not).