Good morning aMember, I get a lot of technical questions on my Wordpress blog so I'm investigating requiring a "paid membership" to post comments and questions. To sweeten the deal to members, I also plan to give members coupons to download two sample code files each month from two sub-domains (one sub-domian is for sample code and one is for ebooks - I run WP in multi-site mode) which currently uses Easy Digital Downloads to sell the files to the general public. So my first question is, what does the aMember integration with Wordpress look like (I just tried the demo but don't see the WP integration?) and is it easy to require a paid membership to post comments on my main WP site? Second, is there a simple way to tell the paid members when they visit my Wordpress blog what the free coupon of the month is? Like an annoucement for members only? I would prefer them to see a notice on my main Wordpress site rather than have to rely on email. Third, are there any sub-domain multi-site features available? (I have a few other sub-domains for my podcasts, videos, and behind the scenes blog, all tightly integrated and 100% related to the main site) Finally, I own a license of vBulletin 4 and was also looking allowing paid members access to the forums, which I see is an aMember add-on. So my forth question is, can that vB 4 forum be on it's own domain, or does it have to exist as a sub-domain? And is there any login integration between WP and vB? And finally, I'm also looking into integrating the comment system from WP with VB 4 and was wondering if that was included? Or if I used a third party tool to sync members and comments would that break aMember (I know this last part might not be able to be answered) Thank you very much in advance for your reply, Sincerely, Shawn Tierney
1. Yes and simple to set up. 2. Yes there is a newsletter that you can send to members by groups. Groups are set by simply signing up or by the purchase they make. 3. Sub- Domains are supported but not recommended. 4. Yes this is possible
1. Just require users to be logged in to comment in WordPress. Then require them to be a subscriber to be a user. Don't allow free signups in WordPress. (or use a WordPress plugin to control membership levels more granularly. You can still have free and paid subscribers but only paid can comment.) 2. You have a default page users are directed to when they login. This can be a membership specific page or WordPress homepage or whatever. You could use that page to give them information like the coupon of the month. Another way to do it is with incremental content. There are controls to say "show this to members who have been subscribed for 30 + days.". You use that to give them their 2nd coupon. You do another block for 60+ days. Etc. 3. aMember remote plugin for $60 may be what you need. Allows you to control login on another site by using the main aMember controls. Not sure about your setup. It might not be required. I'd need more details. 4. There is an integration between VB and aMember. If it's on same server so aMember can have access to the VB database then I think it should be possible. If you used the hosted VB plan it won't be possible. You assign the VB group to the aMember product so they automatically get added to VB but it needs to access the database. If it's the hosted plan you don't have access to the database like that. We haven't done VB work for awhile. My podcasters use SMF not VB these days... however it should work the same. (We did the survival podcast's membership site.)
Thank you both for your responses, they are very helpful. I'm going to send a email off to CGI to get additional clarification, Sincerely, Shawn Tierney