We've noticed a steady increase in sites using eve's built-in premium membership system and many sites are developing some really nice traction.

I thought it would be interesting to take an average across the sites that we just paid disbursements to this month. The average payment per site was over $440! Not bad at all.

Enabling premium memberships is a really easy way for you to not only recover hosting costs but also earn some real income.

I agree, it has worked fairly well for us so far. We are not even reaching the full potential yet as we only have one premium membership class, but after some recent feedback we found some members would like to have more payment options with additional features.

So, it will be interesting to see how that plays out, but I can say one thing, and that is without premium memberships, there is no way we could generate the same income so easily.

JeremyV I love the "LOCAL VENDORS" premium members forum! That is a great idea! That is certainly a creative use of the membership feature!

For my site, the memberships are driven from scripts that I keep in protect via Private Web Directories. I offer anonymous web browsing that is free to all but paying members get SSL support and other features.

How do you use Premium Memberships?

I have still not found a good way to use the private web directories for my site. I am reluctant to just make it a file repository with video downloads and such, because I know my users, someone who had access would download them all, and then provide them to others who can't typically access the area.

I need to find something that is more service based that can only be used from within that private directory.

Can we see some xamples of sites using premium memberships?

What is the added benefit to someone who pays? Is there unique content? private areas?

Of course I am trying to monetize more of my website, but I have to add value each step of the way.

My members are people caring for their aging family members. Typical member is a woman in her 50s. We have been up and running (and profitable) since 1997.

Regards,
Rich

Hi, Rich:

I'm working on getting you a contact from someone who is using Premium Memberships.

Premium Memberships are a perfect way to provide unique content and private areas for your subscribers. It's all handled through permissions, and you can choose which of those permissions to reserve for Premium Members. It might be reference material, or a private forum, or a chat with an expert in your field.

Hi Rich,

We are a nonprofit that is currently using the premium membership feature with very good success. We use the private web directory feature to offer searchable databases for our premium members and content accessible to premium members only. We also offer premium members a quarterly e-newsletter and posting privileges. (Nonpaying members can only read messages).

If you want to look at how we've set up our community, just private message me and I can provide you with the link to check it out.

Hi JeremyV,

Just checked out your site at http://www.americanjeepers.com/

It is great! How did you manage to integrate Photo Gallery into Groupee? We've been asking about this for a long time about other more robust photo gallery systems but there didn't seem to be any way to integrate with Groupee's registration system. (Or, is this a separate system with separate registration).

Also, how were you able to create the side menus at your main forums page http://www.americanjeepers.com/

For example, we tried to use the Content Islands but it always formatted the member display so that members appeared on "every line", instead of what is appearing on your system ... alongside each other (much like it did in ubb-threads when we used that system many years ago).

Finally, how did you incorporate the "Search" forums field so that it appears separately ... the Search on Groupee is embedded within one of the tabs so our members would hardly use the search. We then used Google Search to try to get it upfront as you have.

Also, for anyone else, we're looking for some kind of software system that can enable us to display thumbnails of videos, and then be able to manage video clips much the same way as photopost does. Does something like this exist? And can it integrate into Groupee registration system?

One thing that would be really good for us is to have premium memberships where members can upload videos, photos, podcasts, and that it can be organized in an interface that is similar to photopost which is the most easy-to-use, view and has become an industry standard interface.


Thanks for any tips!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Dance Addict,

It appears that American Jeepers has a VBulletin forum, which is easier to integrate with Photopost. However, if anyone out there has information about how to use Photopost with Eve I would love to hear from you.

Tom
http://www.militaryspot.com