NOTE: WordPress is right for you, only if you want to actually launch your membership site some day, make money from your site, and do not wish to spend an insane amount of time creating and maintaining it, and only if you do not wish to spend hundreds (or thousands) of dollars outsourcing the creation and maintenance of your site

I recently happened across a blog post that presents an argument about why you should not use WordPress for your membership site.

That seems to have caused quite a stir among my target audience (who are basically people who want to start a membership site using WordPress).

A couple of them wrote to me and asked me for my opinion, 1) because I am such a big evangelist of WordPress, and 2) because I have developed a Membership Plugin for WordPress.

I read the argument with interest, and of course felt that it was a very extreme, one-sided worldview of WordPress. I tried to comment there on the site itself, but I got a message that “the site owner has blocked you from commenting”. Not sure why. I will try again. But in the mean time, I simply had to post this here.

So, after you’ve read Alex’s argument for why you should not use WordPress for your membership site, read my (well-rounded, well-educated and balanced, IMHO opinion about why you would be foolish NOT to use WordPress for your membership site – especially if you’re a small-biz owner, info-product marketer, blogger or Do-It-Yoursef’er, and don’t have a big team or a big budget to outsource your membership site development.

My note to Alex…

Alex,

Having developed Wordpress and Non-WordPress scripts for almost 15 years now, I have to respectfully disagree with your argument for not using WP for membership sites.

Let me try to present an objective argument here.

You wrote:
>>it doesn’t matter which one you will choose to use as they all share one big flaw – their dependency on the core of WordPress!<<

I am the developer of a plugin called DigitalAccessPass (DAP), which does *not* have a dependency on the core of WordPress. DAP is a separate piece of software, that can be plugged on TOP of wordpress, and only needs a simple, light-weight “Plugin” that acts as a “bridge” between WP and DAP. In the 15 months since the launch of DAP, and 10 months prior to that when we were developing DAP, WP has released a huge number of updates in those 25 months (2+ years), and we have *never* had a single instance where a WP update affected our script.

Again, it’s all in the design, right? DAP was deliberately designed from the ground up *not* to have a dependency on *any* CMS, not even WP. That’s the reason why DAP works right out of the box with regular, plain-ol HTML web sites, and using the “bridge” plugin concept, can be integrated into other CMS like Joomla, Drupal, etc (Joomla plugin for DAP is in the works as I write this). In fact, with just a little bit of work, DAP can be made to work with every imaginable CMS out there, for this very reason.

>>By themselves they will not function and same goes the WordPress core<<
See above. DAP will function all by itself with just regular HTML web sites.

>>WordPress is Open Source and its code is constantly under scrutiny not only by the good guys but also by people who are looking for a way to compromise your site<<
I can kind of agree with you there, but then, even software and services from even high profile companies, like Google and Microsoft get hacked or gamed. So, just because it’s open source doesn’t mean it’s more vulnerable, and just because it’s “closed source” doesn’t mean it is secure. It all depends on the developers and the community behind it.

I mean, non-WP sites get hacked all the time because the shared-site owner left a PHP script in there that’s vulnerable to XSS attacks, or left the permissions wide open inviting hackers to come join the party. That actually says more about the security of PHP itself, and the security of a shared-host environment. But why blame WP for that?

>>You quickly contact support of the developer who created the plugin you use for Membership Management before jumping into upgrade, as you have to ensure that it will continue to work with new version only to learn that he is taking romantic vacation on secluded island somewhere in Fiji and will not be back for next couple weeks…<<

Yes, I agree, that if you went with a small-time, one-man-developer solution, then regardless of whether they are in Fiji, or get hit by a bus, you’re going to be in trouble. That’s why you pick software from companies like mine, which have been around for 15 years, have written millions of lines of code for small businesses as well as for the enterprise, have a team in place for support, and won’t be going away any time soon (we can’t, because this is what we do .

>>I personally prefer that my membership script is separate and with dedicated support!<<
DAP totally fits the bill here . It is separate, and has dedicated, “non-outsourced” support

You are recommending a downloadable script solution at the end of your post – one which is developed in PHP. PHP has always been (arguably) one of the most insecure programming languages, just because, if you didn’t quite know what you’re doing, it allowed newbies to easily shoot themselves in the foot. Of course, PHP has come a long way since then, but it’s still not the most secure language.

Are we next going to start recommending that no one should use PHP scripts at all, and instead use something like Java or .NET?

So, whether it’s a programming language (PHP), a content management system (WP) or an operating system (Windoze), the solution is only as secure as its developers, the company backing it, and the community supporting it.

And most importantly, the security of a site is only as good as the actual “user” using it (if you download spyware and infected .exe files from the web and your computer gets infected, can you really blame Microsft for it?).

I guess you could blame MS, but that doesn’t mean you’re right.

So, when it comes to the quality of code, extensibility (hooks and filters and plugins) and the community, and the insanely large user base, WordPress simply can’t be beaten.

And when it comes to a membership script for WordPress, DAP also can’t be beaten

My humble $0.02

Appreciate the soapbox, the opportunity, and for your great post which seems to have evoked so many great responses

Thanks much!

- Ravi Jayagopal
Founder & Developer, DigitalAccessPass .com
(Membership Script for WordPress)

I’m hoping to augment this soon with a more detailed article about using WordPress as the platform to build your membership site.

So stay tuned by subscribing to this blog or by following me on twitter.

Feel free to pass this link to other WordPress lovers, and don’t forget to add your comments below. And no, I won’t block them – even if you’re Alex

I started Techiiies.tv as a fun project, and I’m pretty confident that YouTube would run out of storage space before I run out of ideas for creating techiiie videos.

Oh, and by the way, if you’re wondering about the weird spelling of Techiiies, it was of course because the name “Techies” (with the single “i”) wasn’t available

And then Seth Godin published a book called “Tribes” and used the name Triiibes.com for its web site.

And I blatantly copied Seth’s idea, that is all

And ended up with Techiiies.com as well as Techiiies.tv

So check out a video that I created for the site.

Or, the truth is, I launched the web site just to showcase videos that I have created

- Ravi “GeekDawg” Jayagopal
PS: Also on YouTube at http://YouTube.com/Techiiies

Incredibly exciting, inspiring, and motivational video. 50% of the credit goes to the music and the “style” of presentation.

Last week, I searched YouTube (not Google) for how to “change wiper blades“, and watching a couple of the videos helped me change the wiper blades on my car in under 2 minutes (something I had been putting off for almost a year!)

Here is an interesting article about the shift in the way people are searching for information…

In November, Americans conducted nearly 2.8 billion searches on YouTube, about 200 million more than on Yahoo, according to comScore.

If you are not using video on your site, you are leaving a lot of money (and visitors) on the table.

Until last night, I thought I was quite tech-savvy and very up-to-date with the latest and greatest in the web world. But I guess I was wrong

I started on a (brief) quest last month to add live-chat to some of my sites. After looking around, I couldn’t find a decent free solution. Of course, I always pay money gladly if I can’t find a free solution or find that a paid solution will solve my problem. And my search ended concluding LivePerson as the best option.

But then of course, my primary project took precedence, and I forgot all about it (eADD anyone?).

Recently, I picked up the thread again, and stumbled upon Yahoo Pingbox. It seemed very cool – simply add a piece of code (the gadget) to your web site, sign in to Yahoo Messenger as usual, and your visitors to the page with the gadget can chat with you, and you’ll get the messages in your YIM client. And the best part is, Yahoo notifies you every time someone arrives at the web page, even if they don’t initiate chat.

So, I tried it, but the gadget on my site always showed me as “Offline” even though I was online.

After a lot of searching, forum-posting and soul-seeking(!), I finally gave up on Yahoo’s Pingbox. But it was this search that led me to Google’s own Chatback solution.

It is rather surprising that Google and Yahoo would offer such services and do absolutely no marketing whatsoever.

And the irony is that even if you Googled for “google chat gadget” or something similar, you would probably still not find the link I’m about to share with you, as Google seems to have hidden their own service quite successfully from site owners like you and me – who can really use something like this!

Here’s a live example (you’ll see a live ‘clickable’ link if I’m ‘available’)…

When you add a Google Chatback Gadget to your site…

1. Visitors can chat with you anonymously, but you get all the instant messages in GoogleTalk or within the browser if you’re just chatting from within Gmail.

2. Your visitors won’t know what is your gmail id – so you don’t have to worry about spam.

3. Whatever status you set in Google chat, that’s the status your web site visitors will see too.

4. You can add the same widget to any number of web sites/pages.

Here’s how you add the Google Chatback Gadget to your site:

A. Go to http://www.google.com/talk/service/badge/New .
B. Log in to your Google account
C. Customize the Gadget style
D. Copy the code to your web sites/pages.
E. Sit back and wait for your visitors to start messaging you! Done!

So, spent 3 days and couldn’t get Yahoo Pingbox to work. Spent 10 seconds and got Google Chatback to work.

There, I just saved you a few hundred dollars

If you don’t know what a “Mashup” is, fret not.

You’re now going to witness one of the greatest “mashup” tools ever developed…

Full story: Introducing Ubiquity

“Twit” is no longer just a mean word

I signed up for Twitter a while ago. But I never “got it” – until recently – when I figured out the awesomeness of microblogging.

Seth Godin wrote this on his blog:

“My goal in creating this blog is to spread my ideas and keep me from having to write a book about every single thing that pops into my head. I’m an amateur, not a professional.”

“Micro” blogging takes this and turns it on its head – and completely frees me from even the “gotta write a meaningful post” world of “macro” (a.k.a “the usual style of”) blogging.

Microblogging lets me put out stuff that is interesting, stuff that I want to share with my followers, but is too trivial to take up space on my blog.

Though many folks use it in a more social and personal context (“watching Spiderman now”, “woke up late”, “eating lunch” types), it has a much more powerful and serious side to it that is just begging to be taken advantage of.

Now I’ve started leaving behind a trail of my online activities on twitter – for my tribe: Web sites I’m visiting, articles I’m reading, videos I’m watching, books I’m reading…

Whether you twitter or tumble or spoink, do it so that you can make meaning for your followers.

I invite you to come stalk me

Quite frequently, I am reminded of how we take certain things for granted, while it could be something completely new/interesting/educating/shocking for someone else.

Using Google Alerts for competitive research is one such “thing”. During a chat with a friend the other day, I casually mentioned how I use Google Alerts to keep an eye on my industry, and it completely blew him away, while I’d actually been doing this for as long as Google Alerts have existed (and before that News.com alerts).

So, for what it’s worth, here goes:

I use Google Alerts to set up specific alerts for specific keywords.

When Google first finds any new or existing content (blog posts, web pages, forum discussions, etc) anywhere on the web that it hasn’t indexed before, that contains these keywords, Google sends me an email with a link to this newly-found content.

And if a publisher has password-protected their content, but still allowed Google to index it (using the “password-protected content” sitemaps feature), then Google emails me a little blurb of that password-protected content!

So, basically I have set up tens of alerts, the first one (vanity “alert” ahead – quite literally! being my own name (“Ravi Jayagopal”). That way, I always know the instant (or within a few days at worst), if anyone is blogging/writing about me or my products.

Here are some of the alerts you could create:
1. Your full name
2. For all your product names
3. All your web site urls
4. Each and every one of your competitors’ names
5. All of your partners’ names
6. Name of any industry expert (or their web site url) whose blog/site you follow (like I have one for “Seth Godin”
7. The name or category of your industry: For eg., right now I’m a month away from launching a very powerful “Access Management” software to manage subscription-based web sites. So, some of my alerts include the keywords “subscription”, “content”, “download”, “security”, etc. Yes, I do get some false positives, but who cares!

The kind of stuff Google finds on a daily basis thanks to these alerts, not only help me keep a tab on myself, my customers, my competitors, and my idols, but it also gives me a lot of new ideas, new features for my products, and great new ways in which I can make my product remarkable!

So go create your alerts today.

My “Video Unit” link wasn’t available yesterday when the announcement was first made.

Was able to see it today.

“Linked” my Adsense account with my YouTube account.

Got the confirmation from Google in a few minutes (they do warn that it could take up to 12 hours).

Created my “player”, got the code.

The ads load asynchronously, and they seem quite on target from the other sites I tested so far.

Way to go Google!

I found this amazing site yesterday through one of the feeds on LinkOverLoad.com. Awesome video coming right up…

Animoto basically turns your pictures into a fantastic MTV-style video, with some great soundtracks available on their site for free, or you can use your own audio – with your pictures almost flashing in rhythm to the beats of the soundtrack, with some great-looking special effects.

When I signed up, uploaded my pictures, picked a great-sounding track they had on their site (for free) and tried to create my video (remember, their software supposedly creates all of this in an automated fashion), I got this very friendly error message:

Hi there,

We’re sorry to inform you that we have experienced an error in the
production of your recent video, “Beautiful People”. Rest assured, we’re
on the case and we’ll have it rendered as soon as we can–but, depending
on the complexity of the issue, it could take a little time.

We’ll email you the moment it’s ready. Thanks for understanding!

…

That didn’t bother me, as they are still in beta, and still hammering out the rough edges. What did surprise me, is that they promptly sent me this email the next day:

Hi there.

We’ve finished your video, so it’s time for you to go take a look.
Head to:

http://animoto.com/play/…..

We hope you like it! Give us some feedback when you get a chance to
let us know what you liked and how we can improve. Remember, no two
Animoto videos are ever the same so keep making videos and see what unique
pieces you can generate.

…

I excitedly clicked over, and was simply blown away by the results (see video below).

Remarkable idea, great (almost perfect) execution, instantly viral! Pass this along…

Video from Animoto.com