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Dear YNOT,

I have a question for you. I have a website and want to offer my content via a plug-in to other Webmasters. I don’t really understand how to go about it and would like some advice, and find someone to do the scripting.ASK YNOT

Dear YNOT,

I have a question for you. I have a website and want to offer my content via a plug-in to other Webmasters. I don’t really understand how to go about it and would like some advice, and find someone to do the scripting. Thanks!

? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

Hello there!

Well, basically you have two options for doing content delivery:

1) You can have an established reseller put your content into their system and sell it for you. This option is obviously less profitable simply because you have to pay their costs for all of the software, equipment, bandwidth and support. The up-side of doing it this way is that established content companies have established customer bases that can make you money quickly even though you get a fairly low percentage. If you intend to deliver streaming video of any kind this is the least expensive route to get started.

2) The second method of doing this would be to incur the expense of a server, software, bandwidth and support required to deliver this content yourself. Before you do investigation into all of this there are some things I’d suggest you consider first.

If you provide a plug-in you need to have some reliable method of controlling access to your content that is not susceptible to those wanting to steal your content. This is actually more of a regimen of web server configuration and monitoring than anything else. Currently I’m not aware of any plug-in delivery systems that are 100% hack proof. It is very important that you have a technical support person capable of responding to these needs competently and quickly.

Also for plug-in content delivery you need to consider support services. If your content feeds go down, your customers lose money and subsequently so do you. At the very least you will need an email/page notification system with a person available to respond 24-7 to problems with the delivery.

Aside from the simpler issues of spending money on a server, software and bandwidth to do plug-in delivery, the two items above are quite critical in your planning to provide a content plug-in service. These are often high hidden costs that are overlooked.

This will help give you a starting point to be able to choose existing plug-in software or at least be able to get a functional description of what you want from a programmer.

Good Luck,
Jim
YNOTMasters

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