Photo by cyberdees

The winning hack a mechanism to assign how money peoples charitable donation is spent through the use of First Person Shooter caused much amusement amongst fellow hackers and clearly went down well with the judges. The game itself also went down well with all, as while the dev team were sleeping other hackers had joined the server and continued to play through out the night validating the concept.

Photo by cyberdees

The weekend did not go completely without a hitch however as Tim did manage to lose his charger for his netbook but after an impassioned appeal a spare was found and the hacking continued.

The whole weekend was fantastic and huge thankyou have to go to Paypal who brought some of the new API development team over from the states to visit and in particular John, Alison and Dees for making it happen. The winning team consisted of Tim, Dom, Kevin, Leeky and Tom but our beta testers knocked up an impressive 600+ kills in just 3 hours.

This is a preview some features are subject to change

Your Member already has hooks and actions

People maybe confused as Your Members already has an API or rather an internal extension of the Wordpress hooks and Filters with over 20 ways to hook into and interact with Your Member and 100’s of others within Wordpress but these are only accessible within Wordpress framework meaning you need to create a Wordpress plugin to act as a bridge. We show an example of doing this and using actions and filters here.

What the Your Members API does is allow limited ability to call YM and wordpress functions outside of Wordpress and indeed outside of the Domain using a REST based API.

Your Members API vs Actions

So why use the API lets take a look at a traditional problem, integrating an autoresponder, right now adding Aweber or similar support can be done with actions, once a user has completed the YM registration a second plugin calls the ym_return_xxx where xx is the gateway being used to pull the userdata from YM and send it to the autoresponder which in turns confirms the user email, this forces the user to interact with the process several times, likewise Your Members has no way of knowing if the process was a success and likewise the autoresponder can’t tell if the user is still a member.

1. User Initiates contact with Your Members
3. Your Members sends email to user, and request to Autoresponder
4. Autoresponder sends email to user
5. User confirms email to autoresponder

With an api the autoresponder can trigger the events and while the number of steps remain the same the interaction with the user is reduced.

1. User Initiates contact with Autoresponder
3. User confirms email to Autoresponder
4. Autoresponder sends API request to Your Members
5. Your Members sends info to users

For a second example say you are selling a digital or physical product a DVD as well as offering a 6 month option to your site, the choices for integration up until now have been to send them an email with a coupon for your offer, with the API the shopping cart system can instantly assign them membership access to the site. This would be the perfect tool for trusted Joint Venture projects or internal cross selling.

The API doesn’t just add users it can also pool users for information, providing a service to a dedicated account type simply call the useris method likewise if you want to check they have access to a certain post (for example if you are streaming VOD you can protect the video) using the API.

Your Members API calls

Calls are structured as domain.com/YMpath/?ymapi&action=[method]&key=[securitykey] with Private key being sent in post as private=[privatekey] additional method parameters can be sent POST or GET (note for security reasons we might restrict this to POST or at least add the option) the return is simple XML.

Example Your Members API call

http://www.example.com?ymapi&acton=add&key=timbo1 POST private=346734hbbgg374837gd email=test@example.com sub_id=5_y_basic

Returns:

< ?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ? >
< rsp stat="ok">
< method>add< /method>
< user_id>3< /user_id>
< ustamp>125240612< /ustamp>
< /rsp>

or if there is a problem

< ?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
< rsp stat="fail">
< err code="[error-code]" msg="[error-message]" />
< /rsp>


If this seems familiar its because its the same method as Flickr, Twitter and many other services offer.

Your Members API Methods

The following calls can be made each can be made via POST/GET and all subject to change in particular delete which we are still pondering including.

Method Add User [add]

Provides the ability to add users and assign a default subscription, Purchased Post or Purchased Post Pack

Parameters:

• Email – Users email address Required
• name – Users first name, if not present Email will be used for login
• sub_id – Subscription ID for subscription to be assigned
• post_id – Post ID for associating paid post
• pack_id – PackID for associating paid post packs

Returns:

• user_id – Wordpress generated userID number

Method Cancel User [cancel]

Switches subscription of user to inactive but does not delete user account
Parameters:

• Email – Users email address
• userid- Users ID

Returns:

• true – boolean true false

Method delete User [delete] – NOT CONFIRMED

Deletes the user account
Parameters:

• Email – Users email address
• userid- Users ID

Returns:

• true – boolean true false

Method User Is Account Type [useris]

Returns the current account and subscription information of the user
Parameters:

• Email – Users email address
• userid- Users ID

Returns:

• userid – Wordpress User ID
• account_type – users current Your Members Account type
• sub_id – The current subscription they are on
• active – boolean true|false

Method User has access to post/page [userhasaccess]

Check userid and post_id against the user_has_access() function
Parameters:

• post_id – Post ID to check against Required
• Email – Users email address
• userid- Users ID

Returns:

• true – boolean true false

Your Members API Security

The biggest issue with the API is security and as such it will be shipped switched off! This tool is designed for people who know what they are doing and want to really integrate their membership site with other services or third parties such as Joint Ventures. Every API call must be made with a valid Private key (a user can have multiple private keys) and a 6 digit security key. Both sets of keys can be tied down further (unfinished) restricting to specific referrer for example. Finally every API call is logged and can be exported to csv.

Microsoft visualisation – US Patents

vs

Our own Your CAPTCHA Advert

Does Microsofts Patent just squeeze us out of the market?

The question for us is what to do about this, we are not a large firm and obviously a straight fight with Microsoft lawyers is a no no, nor do we believe we were the first to come up with the idea (indeed it was discussed as far back as 2005, brand CATPTHCA), though I believe we are the first to market the product which has been in our product range for over 9 months and is in use in the wild, like several other companies we have put time into research the benefits of non direct call to action marketing and brand reinforcement.

Positives to the Microsoft patent?

What we can take from this is we are the first to market of an idea even the larger companies are now thinking about! Your CAPTCHA advert has not been in active development for a few months now so perhaps its time to take it to stage 2, we will be studying the patent to determine if it actually would cover what Your CAPTCHA advert does.

By the way your CAPTCHA advert is $24 but you can buy it for just $15 from our products page!

What do people think should we simply abandon Your CAPTCHA Advert to its fate?

Check out the speakers and schedule but there is more oh yes…

Tim is offering to run a free seminar the day before for attendees covering user behaviour modelling and pattern analysis, this may sound dull but trust us it will be a fun and useful day for everyone. If your interested check out Tim’s recent blog post on free seminar for Think Vis attendees.

Did we forget something, oh yeah go buy a ticket!

For more information check out both Tims’ Introduction to HackNorth and Doms’ HackNorth Welcome

Space is limited to 250 developers (register on the mailing list to hear when tickets are released) you will have to be over 18 to take part, for full HackNorth rules of the event.

What is a Pay Per Post Pack?

Put simply PPP Packs allow you to group a collection of posts and then charge for access to all of the posts in one transaction. They are different to subscriptions because a pack contains a finite number of posts, packs can be purchased more then once, so a user can have access to multiple packs but only one subscription.

How does it work?

Much like our current pay per post system, stage one, select posts to be in a pack, and make them “purchasable” so toggle the hide ppp and tick purchasable option but don’t set a price. You can also associate a membership role if you want.

The in Access Control Settings -> Pay Per Post Packs

Create a new pack give it a name, description and a price.

click the posts button will allow you to associate purchasable posts with the pack, select the posts you want.

once saved you can generate a button, the easiest way is via a short code in a post (this generates a payment button) the short code is [ym_ppp_pack#1] where 1 is the pack number. You can change the way this button looks via Settings -> Messages.

That’s it

When will you get to play

Your Members 1.5.0beta will be with Developers within a few minutes of me finnishing this post! so the best way to get hold of YM 1.5.0beta is to purchase a developer license (don’t forget if your a single license holder or a Your Minder owner we will refund the difference)

But they are all going to make a terrible mistake, you see we think Yaro is great but misguided you see when he wrote his amazing his course he hadn’t used Your Members Developer License edition…

But fear not because I have the perfect way to get the best of both worlds (jump straight to the offer) but first what is this course all about? If you have never heard of Yaro Starak why don’t you try his free report on membership sites or the video below?

Our Offer

Clearly if you are going to spend money on this course you want the best software for the job, so if you buy The Membership Site Masterplan through one of our links we will give you Your Members Developer License for free, that’s Your Members Wordpress Membership plugin, Your Responder – Wordpress Autoresponder Software, Your Minder Multi user Security Software, Your Members Firesale, Your Members First Click Free, Million dollar Membership Audio Course and any of our future products!

To claim this awesome offer:

1. Click this link to make your purchase
2. After Purchase jot down your purchase ID
3. Email sales@venture-skills.co.uk with purchase ID

Wait that wasn’t really a good enough offer!

I agree it wasn’t so we will be throwing in for the first 10 purchases through our link £200 (yes that’s sterling not dollars) in development time to make Your Members work exactly as they want, if you want some crazy feature we will add it, or maybe you want a whole other plugin programmed let us know.

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How is a payment plan different from a subscription?

I’m sure there is some legal definition of a payment plan but in this context, I’m talking about a fixed price which is then split into equal payments over a given period. For example a payment plan might look something like this: Total value of £200 with 4 payments of £50 normally a payment plan is for a good or service or something that comes to an end.

Payment Plan – Legal Note

IAMNAL – But there is a huge flaw with using Paypal as a means to create a cheap payment plan for a physical good. The user has the right to cancel a Paypal subscription at any time nothing you can do about it, once cancelled it would be up to you to chase them for outstanding money. Also be aware in the UK you do need a consumer credit license to offer credit now I do not know if the fact the user can cancel the payment means you would be exempt but I suspect it would be hard to stand up in court. Use this idea cautiously.

Creating a Payment Plan

Ok so let’s assume we have an item priced at £250 we want to offer a payment plan of £20 month payments. Because we are taking micropayments there is a greater cost involved so it makes sense to charge an additional percentage (administration fee) remember this can’t be paypal fee totals as that would be against Paypals TOS.

The best way to see what’s happening is to look at some code, this function is receiving 3 variables, the original cost, the cost of an installment and the percentage we are going to charge.

function generate_paypal_button($cost,$ins,$per){

  /* add our percentage if you want to display percentage info $per % $perrcentage_cost actual value 
  $total_cost is total with % */
  $percentage_cost = $cost * $per /100;
  $total_cost = $cost + $percentage_cost;

  //determine number of installments ($total_ins)and whats left ($last)
  $total_ins = 1; //this will be going up
  $last = $total_cost; 
  while($last > $ins) 
  { 
  $last -= $ins; 
  $total_ins++; 
  } 
  //Last is the amount outstanding but paypal wont let us add at the end, so we have to add it to the start
  $total = $total_ins - 1;   //deduct an installment for our first one 
  $first = $last + $ins; //our additional installment the normal installment price + $last

  generate_paypal_button_code($first, $total, $ins);

  //debug uncomment for the cool total
  /*  echo 'Cost: $'. $cost .' Total Cost (with '.$per.'%): $'. $total_cost .' with '. $total .' instalments 
  of $'. $ins .' and fist installment of $'.$first; */

}

Notice we are creating a first payment which is a standard installment charge plus all the remaining money that would be owed. Because of the way Paypal works we cannot add the remainder at the end of the installments so we need to do it at the beginning. Since we have combined the first installment we must remember to remove 1 installment from the total that we are going to run for (as it will have happened prior to reaching this total)

The generate_paypal_button_code function is simply creating the button

function generate_paypal_button_code($first, $total_ins, $ins){
  //In the real world this would be coming from a db, and indeed this would probably be a class or something more generic
  $paypal_url = 'https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr';
  $paypal_email = 'joe@example.com';
  $paypal_item_name = 'Test Installment Plan';
  $paypal_notify_url = 'http://www.example.com';
  $paypal_return = 'http://www.example.com';

  echo '
  <form action="'. $paypal_url .'" method="post" name="paypal_form" id="paypal_form"> 
  <input type="hidden" name="cmd" value="_xclick-subscriptions" /> 
  <input type="hidden" name="business" value="'.$paypal_email .'" /> 
  <input type="hidden" name="item_name" value="'. $paypal_item_name .'" /> 
  <input type="hidden" name="no_shipping" value="1" /> 
  <input type="hidden" name="no_note" value="1" /> 
  <input type="hidden" name="currency_code" value="USD" /> 
  <input type="hidden" name="lc" value="US" /> 
  <input type="hidden" name="a1" value="'.$first .'" /> 
  <input type="hidden" name="p1" value="1" /> 
  <input type="hidden" name="t1" value="M" /> 
  <input type="hidden" name="a3" value="'. $ins .'" /> 
  <input type="hidden" name="p3" value="1" /> 
  <input type="hidden" name="t3" value="M" /> 
  <input type="hidden" name="recur_times" value="1">
  <input type="hidden" name="src" value="1" /> 
  <input type="hidden" name="sra" value="1" /> 
  <input type="hidden" name="srt" value="'. $total_ins .'" /> 
  <input type="hidden" name="notify_url" value="'. $paypal_notify_url .'" /> 
  <input type="hidden" name="return" value="'. $paypal_return .'" /> 
  <input type="hidden" name="callback_script" value="<script></script>" /> 
  <input type="hidden" name="rm" value="2" /> 
  <input type="submit" name="submit" id="submit">
  </form>';
  }

The bits of importance to us are the a1,p1,t1 inputs these generate a “trial” which we are using to generate our first payment of a single installment plus the remaining money.

 <input type="hidden" name="srt" value="'. $total_ins .'" /> 

The SRT input allows us to declare the number of cycles we want to pass through, this is the number of regular payments to be made, when you reach the SRT limit Paypal stops taking the money.

If your stuck for how to handle paypal payments on a site then you might find this tutorial from Olaf useful: Paypal IPN Integration

Uses for Payment Plans

Well the obvious use perhaps is a drip fed membership site (Your Members perhaps), where people have limited but growing access to the site while they are still paying off their membership when they reach the end of their payment plan they gain complete access and any physical product (dvd perhaps) is shipped to them.

How would you use payment plans?

Demo | Download Code (released under CC)

The course is provided DRM free Mp3 format so you can put it on the Ipod or other mp3 compatible device (we are not total Apple fan boys) and listen to the discussion while doing the ironing or going to the office.

How do I grab my Your Members Bonus?

If your an existing dev member, simply login to your site go to your YM page and you will see the download link, you may be prompted for your Email (please remember this is the email you use to activate YM) job done.

If your a single license holder, today is a great day to upgrade right now Your Members Dev license holders have access to: Your Members (unlimited installs), Your Minder, Your CAPTCHA Advert, Your Responder (beta), Your Members Firesale (beta), Million dollar Membership site, priority email support…
Did I miss anything?

If you don’t have a Your Members License now is the perfect time to get one.

A Million pound catch?

Ah I’m afraid so, we will be giving away the Million Dollar Membership bonus for a very limited time only, Until Saturday (21/02/08) to be exact after that it won’t be available to new Dev license holders so now is the time to grab this additional bonus.

Multi Million Dollar Membership site is not a Cambridge New Media Product and is provided under our resale license allowing us to pass this offer on to you. Needless to say we don’t take responsibility for errors and indeed the content of the product.

Do you struggle to get people to look at your ads? Suffer from low clickthrough rates then Your CAPTCHA Advert may well be the way forward!

What does Your CAPTCHA Advert do?

YCA is a traditional image based CAPTCHA but instead of random letters which the user repeats it poses questions set by the admin, questions relate to the image which can be whatever the admin wants. So lets take a simple scenario of promoting Your Members in such a scenario I would upload my advert and then create questions around the advert in effect focusing the attention of the user on the advert.

Is Your CAPTCHA Advert effective?

Yes is the simple answer, though clickthrough rates on the ad itself are low, brand awareness is increased and sales/clicks elsewhere in the site are increased. The psychology behind the technique is simple because the user must complete the action (filling in the captcha) they must focus on the advert but their brain does not perceive the advert as an ad but part of their current task. However the adverts contents are locked and stored and when presented with the advert again while not performing a task the user reaction is one of clicking through.
Of course this is no substitute for having a good ad, a good product and a good sales page but as part of a well designed marketing campaign it can be an effective tool.

Is Your CAPTCHA Advert accessible?

Your CAPTCHA advert is image driven but provides the option for adding alternate text and additional hints to make your adverts as accessible as possible. However we suggest making sure Your CAPTCHA advert complies with local rules regarding disability before purchase it is however if used in combination with alt attributes and hint system suitable for use in the UK, USA and EU countries.

How do I buy Your CAPTCHA Advert

Get Your CAPTCHA Advert for just $24 from Products Page or click…