Lack of interest Paid subscription/User Upgrade: showing partial article-text to non-paying members

[Grover]

Good morning,

I just had a discussion with a potential new client of mine who would like to have their site powered by XenForo. They are searching for a system that gives them this: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703886904576031510722493874.html

... so that normal users only see a portion of the text of their articles and members who have a paid subscription will see the entire text. This way they hope they can monetize the site better by stimulating people to pay for their membership.

Obviously XenForo is not a CMS/article based system (yet), but I guess publishing articles inside the forum (in the first posting of a thread, so that members can comment on it through the thread) will also do for this client for now. However, XenForo does offer forum-access connected to paid subscriptions, but no such thing on the posting/article-level.

I realize I am putting something into the Suggestions forum that not much people will need on their forums (I presume), so if it's more suited as an add-on (as I think it is), then please move this suggestion to a more appropiate forum.

 

[Vincent]

That is easy to create and I love it

This should definately get added as a modification

 

[Grover]

That is easy to create and I love it

This should definately get added as a modification

I should note that they need this in just specific forums on their future platform. So the add-on should be able to just be activated on forums of their choice, so that the rest of the forums function like normal.

 

[Vincent]

I should note that they need this in just specific forums on their future platform. So the add-on should be able to just be activated on forums of their choice, so that the rest of the forums function like normal.

I know

 

[Paul B]

Based on your comments at the end of your post Grover, I've moved this to add-on requests.

For niche features such as this, you're probably better off asking in the add-ons forum as you will have more chance of it being developed.

If you want it moved back to suggestions just say.

 

[Grover]

Thanks Brogan for your explanations.

 

[Kier]

I'm trying to think of an elegant way to do this, I'm not sure it's as straightforward as some people might expect...

 

[Paul B]

If you're considering it for the core Kier, shall we move the thread (back) to Suggestions?

 

[Grover]

I'm trying to think of an elegant way to do this, I'm not sure it's as straightforward as some people might expect...

Amazing. This was a reaction I didn't expect (I was thinking it would probably the first time in my '10 year-forum-life' that I needed to depend on an add-on ).

If XenForo Ltd. is willing to consider/invest in monetizing-functionality like the above and others for XenForo then it's truly great. I have the impression that nowadays more (potential) clients/admins then before are searching for ways to monetize their site. A few years ago I didn't even know what the word meant ...

I am already recommending XenForo, but I'm sure that for businesses XenForo will become more interesting if it comes with (more) tools to monetize their platforms (I am stating the obvious I guess).

 

[Kier]

If you're considering it for the core Kier, shall we move the thread (back) to Suggestions?

Sure, it seems like a fairly reasonable suggestion to me. Everybody needs easier ways to monetise their forums.

 

[matthewalan]

I kind of like this idea. I'm not entirely sure I'd just it much, with paid subscriptions, but it would be really nice to be able to activate it for guests.

 

[Paul B]

I kind of like this idea. I'm not entirely sure I'd just it much, with paid subscriptions, but it would be really nice to be able to activate it for guests.

User upgrades can't be used for guests which is why I made this suggestion: http://xenforo.com/community/thread...les-to-be-viewed-but-not-thread-content.7269/

Similar in scope in that it allows just thread titles to be viewed, but a first post snippet would also be good as that would be even more of a teaser.

If the two could be combined with usergroup promotion then that would just about cover every requirement I can think of

 

[matthewalan]

That's what I was thinking. Not necessarily use the user upgrade part, but be able to set if you only want guests to see titles and the beginning of each post ALONG with the usergroup promotion. That way you'd be able to add it in for like a premium members forum that only paid members have access too. But then you let the regular members see parts of it in hope they'd upgrade. Of course, you'd want to disable any images, links, attachments and anything like that.

 

[Grover]

User upgrades can't be used for guests which is why I made this suggestion: http://xenforo.com/community/thread...les-to-be-viewed-but-not-thread-content.7269/

Didn't saw that one before, but I have now supported [liked] it. This will be yet another beneficial idea for monetizing our (clients) platforms

.

 

[Xarcell]

You could probably do this yourself the hardway.

Install "parseHTML" mod and give yourself permissions.

Install "template helper for user groups" mod.

Make a forum post, write your article. Then where you want to cut it off for paid subscribers, add something like this:

[parsehtml]<xen:if is="!{xen:helper checkusergroup, $visitor, 1, 2, 3}">[/parsehtml]
    everything in here you must be a subscriber to see...
[parsehtml]</xen:if>[/parsehtml]

Example Article:

blah blah blah blah blah blah[parsehtml]<xen:if is="!{xen:helper checkusergroup, $visitor, 1, 2, 3}">[/parsehtml]
everything in here you must be a subscriber to see...
[parsehtml]</xen:if>[/parsehtml] blah blah blah blah blah...

Heck if you wanted to make it easier, install the BBC manager. Create 2 BBC codes. One that is this "[subscriber-start] that outputs this [parsehtml]<xen:if is="!{xen:helper checkusergroup, $visitor, 1, 2, 3}">[/parsehtml] and [subscriber-end] that outputs this: [parsehtml]</xen:if>[/parsehtml]

If you wanted everything in between to just be html for the subscriber, you could just create BBC that is [subscriber][/subscriber].

None of this is tested, but I don't see why it wouldn't work. You made to tweak the concepts I've given here to get it to work.

 

[physicspirate]

I really like the paid subscription ideas that have been suggested thus far. Hopefully they make it into the core as I prefer to run without mods.

 

[Deepmartini]

YES, I am interested in this as well. Please include an option to show snippets of the post/article, then append the end of the snippet with a message like "...Want to read more? Then join now and become a member to see the whole post." This would be a BIG way to get lots of users to join, whether a paid or free forum. If they click on a post they would go to a login page with the snippet and full sign-up form. Just like membergate does it at their demo at https://www.membergate.com/demo/members/login.cfm?hpage=The_Worlds_Largest_Fish_Goes_Home.cfm

 

[Deepmartini]

P.S.-I have experience using various subscription/membership site software like Membergate.com and WishList Member (with Wordpress). I would like to see some of these features within Xenforo as a monetization option.

 

[Deepmartini]

Just wondering if there have been any solutions to this yet? How are people creating teaser content and what's the best way to do this in Xenforo?