Possibility Of A Magazine Membership Model

[dspdavid]

Greeting

1. Is it possible to use s2Member to run a magazine model? In other words, new members begin getting content from the current month they joined. Old content/issues can be purchased individually.

2. What is the best way to "group" a monthly issue's articles in order to implement the above model? Group by Category? By Tag?

3. Is it possible to have a member log in and see a page with all issues they currently have access to?

Thank you!!

-- Dave

[Jwrbloom]

Here is how I'm doing mine:

1) User purchases the magazine via S2 and PayPal, which is on a Page on my WP site.

2) User is taken from PayPal to the Page where the magazine sits.

3) I'm using the S2 shortcodes they set up to restrict what they see on that Page. They must be registered and logged in to see what they bought. I'm not protecting that page via S2 levels. I'm just making it so they must be logged in to see a certain part of the Page where the magazine is. Otherwise, they see content that says they must be logged in.

[dspdavid]

Thank you for your reply!

Does that mean you don't currently use recurring monthly payments? Your users by each issue separately?

I like that it is possible to show each user what they purchased.

Thank you.

-- Dave

[redheadskater]

I am currently using it as a magazine model. We do both print and online articles.

S2 member works *pretty good* out of the box for a magazine site. The problem we have is that when we need to export the current subscribers database to get the mailing info off to the printers, there has to be a fair amount of scrubbing done before we can send it off to the printers. It would be nice if the export function gave you the option of selecting which fields to export.

We are using the Pro version with recurring payments. One rather serious limitation is that you can not do any subscription longer than 12 months. We offer a 24 month subscription at an even greater discount and right now we are trying to figure out a way to fudge the system because PayPal will only bill annually - not bi-annually.

The other conflict I just discovered today is that S2 does not work well with the Featured Content Gallery plugin. We are (were) using this to highlight some of the popular content - but if that content is protected by S2, then it will not show up in the front-end of the featured content gallery. If you are logged in as a member you can see it just fine.

This is what we have encountered so far.
Lisa

[dspdavid]

Thank you Lisa!

On your site, if a member subscribes in Dec will they gain access to Nov and earlier? If not, how is this set up. I don't see it in the documentation.

Thanks!

-- Dave

[redheadskater]

Thank you Lisa!

On your site, if a member subscribes in Dec will they gain access to Nov and earlier? If not, how is this set up. I don't see it in the documentation.

Thanks!

-- Dave

Yes, they will have access to all content that is available on the site. So if someone signs up in December '11, they will be able to go back and view the online magazines since Jan. '11 in flipbook format.

[redheadskater]

Thank you for your reply!

Does that mean you don't currently use recurring monthly payments? Your users by each issue separately?

I like that it is possible to show each user what they purchased.

Thank you.

-- Dave

Dave - sorry for not responding sooner - this board doesn't do notifications if someone has replied to a thread.

We have a store setup where the general public can purchase downloadable PDF's of back issues.

In regards to our current subscribers, we have a category for the current issue. Since this is a new site, all issues from Jan '11 forward will be online for our subscribers in a flipbook format. This will help to cut down on content stealing by giving them a flipbook rather than a PDF.

And no, we don't do monthly recurring payments. We do annual.

Lisa

[dspdavid]

Lisa

Many thanks for your reply and insight!!

-- Dave