We’d like to inform you of what happened along with what we have done to correct it and prevent it from happening again.

When WishList Member is purchased, each customer is issued a “license key” to verify the purchase.

With that in mind, WishList Member checks the license key on an ongoing basis to verify that each site is using the correct license and to also issue product updates to these sites accordingly.

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The problem that occured this weekend resulted because the “activation server” that verifies the license key, went down.

So for the sites where WishList Member wanted to verify the license, there wasn’t anything there to verify it was a valid license (because our server was down).

This caused roughly 10% of our customers to receive a “500 internal error”.

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As soon as we heard about our server being down (we heard first from our customers vs. our hosting provider), we immediately sprung into action to resolve the issue.

This being the first time something like this has ever happened in our company’s history (3+ years), we weren’t sure what was all of a sudden causing this server to crash.

Nevertheless, we got the server back up, everything was fixed and after monitoring it for several hours, it looked to be running smoothly.

Then, the following day it happened again.

This was baffling to us as this was two times in as many days and prior to that, it had never occurred.

Why was this all of a sudden happening?

We immediately got the server back up and then went into “investigation mode”.

After hours of analyzing the situation, we found out that it had to do with specific limitations of the server we were using (something we didn’t initially foresee).

That’s when we decided to make some significant changes in the way our verification process operates.

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We have now implemented a situation whereby the “verification check” must fail multiple times before the WishList Member license is deactivated.

Plus, even when it is going to be deactivated, the customer will have a number of days prior to the deactivation and will be made aware of that with several messages.

This will eliminate the situation we had this weekend because the sites would continue working fine until the next check. If the next check failed as well, the customer would still have plenty of time to prepare as well.

The time for this whole process to complete before the final deactivation would be roughly a couple of weeks. So, as you can see, this changes the situation completely from what happened this weekend when our server was down for a few hours.

Furthermore, we have made significant upgrades to our server environment introducing load balancers, mirroring servers (so if one goes down, the other kicks in to verify licenses) etc.

We are deeply sorry to those customers who were effected.

We take this very seriously as we pride ourselves on our products and the service we provide to our customers.

In addition, we too have sites using our own software (and we were effected as well – and we don’t want anything like that happening either).

Moving forward, we are very confident in the changes we have made and look forward to continuing to hear about your success.

Take care,

Stu McLaren
Co-Founder, WishList Products

We like treating our customers.

So for Christmas, we decided to put together an awesome package jammed packed with all kinds of goodies including a HUGE exclusive, custom drawn icon set, membership site graphics, 3 kick-butt plugins and a 3-Module training.

All the promotion details can be found here.

If you’re an existing WishList Member customer, here’s how to begin downloading them in 3 simple steps:

Step #1 – Login To The Customer Center

All the interviews will be provided from within the Customer Center.  You’ll need to login by going to:

http://customers.wishlistproducts.com

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Step #2 – Click On The “2011 Christmas Gifts” Link on the Dashboard

As soon as you login to the Customer Center you will be taken to the Dashboard.

From here you will be able to find the “2011 Christmas Gifts” icon:

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Step #3 – Click On The Gift You Wish To Access

As mentioned above, each of the gifts will be delivered within the Customer Center.

Simply click on the post title of the gift you wish to access and  you will see the download links for that particular gift:

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That’s it!

Enjoy the gifts.  We know you’ll gain tremendous value from what each of them and look forward to hearing how you’ll use them

In the spirit of the season, we decided to do something special for our WishList Member customers.

But we didn’t figure out exactly what we were going to do until our company “Christmas party:

To find out what we’ll be giving all our customers, watch this…

2011 WishList Christmas Promotion (part 2)

Click For More Details On The Gifts

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If you didn’t see part 1 of the Christmas video, here it is:

2011 WishList Christmas Promotion (part 1)

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]]> http://wishlistproducts.com/gifts-for-all-wishlist-customers/feed/ 31 http://wishlistproducts.com/happy-holidays-wishlist-customers/ http://wishlistproducts.com/happy-holidays-wishlist-customers/#comments Wed, 07 Dec 2011 17:52:33 +0000 WPWL Team http://wishlistproducts.com/?p=1205

With it being the Holiday season, the WishList team wanted to do something special for all of our customers (by now you probably know that we like giving our customers unexpected “extras”).

But as we’ve been preparing our customer Christmas gifts, we knew we’d need some extra help.

Unfortunately, things turned out to be a little harder than we expected…

WishList Products Christmas Promotion

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So what do you think?

Plummer?  Evil Wray?  or Sinta Claus?

Let us know in the comments below.

Also, let us know how you celebrate the Holidays with your members.

(it will be fun to see what everyone is doing )

We’re a little biased but we think we have the best customers in the business.

But to prove it, we need your help.

We’d like to show the world YOUR WishList Member site in our Annual Wishie Awards

Here’s how to participate in 60 seconds or less…

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Here’s How To Nominate Your Site

(60 seconds or less)

To get started, just follow the steps outlined below:

Step #1 – Pick A Category

Select a category you’d like to enter your site for:

1. Best Design (Got a great looking site?  Pick this one)
2. Most Unusual Site (Serving a weird niche market?  This one is for you)
3. Best Marketing Strategy (Doing something cool to attract or keep your members?  Tell us about it)
4. Most Valuable Insider (Who rocks WishList Insider like nobody’s business?)
5. Best Overall (If your site looks good, kicks butt and you’re proud of it, enter here!)

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Step #2 – Nominate Yourself

Nominate yourself (or another WishList Member customer) for any of the awards listed above.

Just leave a comment with the following information:

Name:
Website:
Category: (Best Design, Most Unusual etc.)
Reason For Nomination (50 words or less):

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Step #3 – Spread The Word

We’ll be accepting nominations until December 12th, 2011 so be sure to ask your community to nominate you by coming back here and leaving a comment.  The more nominations you get, the more likely you’ll be a finalist!

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That’s all there is to it.

There are SO many wonderful WishList Member sites out there and we really look forward to showcasing them to the world

Good luck everyone!

3 years ago today (October 22nd) our pride and joy was born.

We were beaming with pride but at the same time a tad nervous.

Would people like it?

Would people use it?

Well 3 years later and over 29,000 membership sites and online communities are now powered by WishList Member… WOOHOO!

And now it’s time to celebrate with all our customers by giving them a little something…

Happy 3rd Anniversary WishList Member Customers

Purchase WishList Member today!

To celebrate, we will be giving anyone who purchases WishList Member during the month of October a copy of our brand new book called “Membership Site Masters”… absolutely FREE!

(International orders outside of the U.S. will have a small shipping fee)

In this book you’ll hear the best membership site tips and tricks from people who are running 6 & 7-figure membership sites with thousands of members.

…PLUS…

ALL existing customers will be receiving a digital copy of the book along with the audio interviews that accompany the book.

You’ll hear from:

MASTER #1 – The Prolific Veteran

What does it take to create a 7-figure membership site? Find out from this master who with over 10 years experience, has had up to 48 membership sites running simultaneously!

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MASTER #2 – The Freebie Genie

Can you really get paid every month by giving the majority of your content away for FREE? The answer is YES as this membership site master shares his formula for blending both free and paid content en route to big success.

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MASTER #3 – The Community Cultivator

This master is proof that you can build a very profitable membership site even when working within a tiny niche market. With over 4,500+ paying members, you’ll hear how to create a welcoming community that your members won’t ever want to leave.

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MASTER #4 – The Tester

Flying in the face of conventional wisdom, this master marketer has built a 7-figure membersip site by testing and tracking countless pricing and conversion strategies. You’ll discover his highest converting tricks along with tips for maintaining an above average retention rate.

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All WishList Member customers will receive the details on how to obtain their books (and downloads) prior to October 31st.

If you haven’t got a copy of WishList Member, now is the best time to do it.

Grab a copy by going to www.WishListMember.com.

Thanks everyone – we really do appreciate you and look forward to serving you another 3 years!

Before we knew it, 3 years flew by.

But as we approach the 3rd Anniversary of WishList Member, our team has been pondering the question…

“What should we do to celebrate?”

That’s where we need your help.

Watch the quick 2 min video for details…

Here’s how to send us your video in 3 easy steps:

Step 1) Create Your 5-15 second video

• Include your name and a quick description of the best gift you ever gave or received
• The shorter the video the better (ideally between 5-15 seconds) – That way we can include more people
• Ex.  ”My name is [INSERT YOUR NAME] and the best gift I ever received was [INSERT BRIEF GIFT EXPLANATION HERE]

• Upload your video to YouTube
• Include “Happy Anniversary WishList Member” in the title of the video
• Copy the URL of the video

Step 3)  Post The Video URL in The Comments

• Let us know where we can find your video by posting the video URL in the comments of this post.

IMPORTANT

• All videos must be posted by midnight on Monday, October 17th, 2011
• We’ll try to include as many as we can (depending on how many we receive)

That’s it!

We look forward to hearing from you and including you in our next video

Time really does fly and it’s hard to believe that WishList Member is coming up on it’s 3rd Anniversary.

To celebrate, we want to doing something special.

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Share your “WishList” memories from the past 3 years below.

What sites have you launched using WishList Member?

What’s your favorite feature?

Let us know in the comments

As we pointed out in our “Sneak Peak” post, WishList Member v2.7 is jammed packed with all kinds of new goodies including:

- Brand New User Interface
- Pay Per Post Option
- Custom Post Type Integration
- New Shopping Cart and Autoresponder Integrations
- Webinar Integration
- and much more!

To get access to all these updates, please read the instructions below to ensure a smooth upgrade.

Download Instructions:

You can download the latest version of WishList Member in two different ways.

1)  From Your WishList Member Dashboard

You will see a link to the latest version.

Here is a sample screenshot:

2) From Within The Customer Center

Step #1 – Login to the Customer Center

Step #2 – Click The License Key Link Under “Your WishList Downloads”

Step #3 – Locate Your Download Info

Here you will see both your license information along with the download links to the products you have purchased (including WishList Member).

This download link always contains the latest version of WishList Member.

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What If I Need To Upgrade?

Each purchase of WishList Member comes with 1 year of unlimited updates.

If you are outside of that 1-year period, you can upgrade your license and get another full year of updates for $47.

Just follow the download instructions outlined above and you will be directed to the upgrade page accordingly.  Once you’ve upgraded, you’ll be able to then download the latest version of WishList Member.

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Best Practices Include…

1) Deactivating WLM first (you’re settings won’t be lost).

2) Unzip the WLM zip file.

3) Upload the “wishlist-member” folder to your WP plugins folder.

This will overwrite the old version (don’t worry, your settings will still be there!). If you’re uploading using an FTP program, make sure your “transfer type” settings are “Binary” and NOT “ASCII”.

4) Then activate WLM in your plugins.

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IMPORTANT

- To ensure a seamless upgrade, please make sure you are using WordPress v3.1+ and your server is running PHP5.

- Full Release Notes for WishList Member v2.7 Are Located Here

- Got questions?  We can help.  Submit a support ticket and our team will help accordingly.  Click here to contact our Support Desk

At WishList headquarters we are continuously looking for ways we can improve the experience our customers have with our products.

That means we are always looking at how our customers are using what we create and what we can do to make that experience better.

What we’ve found with WishList Member is that many of our customers are expanding beyond the “traditional” membership site and have begun using WishList Member for alternative applications (ex. private site for clients, internal company site etc.).

As such, we thought there were a few things we could do to help make things a little bit easier… no matter how you plan on using it.

That meant some new features…

Some “tweaks” to current features…

And some changes that will help you get your membership site up faster and easier

Some of these features are BIG (very big in fact!).

Some are small.

Some are just “handy”.

All in all, we know you’ll come to love and appreciate all the effort our team has poured into this release (be sure to let us know what you think in the comments!).

Take a look…

New Features Coming in WishList Member v2.7

1) Redesign of WishList Member Interface

It’s been almost 3 years since we launched WishList Member and the user interface (for the most part) has stayed the same the whole time.

But it was getting a little outdated and we decided to make the plunge and give things a fresh new look.

Along the way we moved a few things around, revised the navigational tabs and organized the settings to make it easier to find what you need.

We’d be remised if we didn’t give a BIG thank you to Shawn Hesketh of www.LeftLaneDesigns.com who helped us with the redesign of the interface.  We’ve worked with Shawn many times and have always been impressed by the quality of his work but it also helped that he’s an avid fan of WishList Member (www.WP101.com) so it was a natural fit

Here is a quick look at the new design:

(click thumbnail for a larger view)

2)  Pay Per Post

Have you ever wanted to sell access to just “one post”?

…or…

Have you ever wanted to give one of your members access to a post/page while other members (who belong to the same level) wouldn’t have access to that special page?

Now you can

This feature has been in the works for a long time but we wanted to make sure we did it right.

What’s cool is that it seemlessly hooks into the same shopping cart integration you are using for your existing membership levels.

Plus, you can also use this feature without requiring people to “pay”.

“What do you mean?”

Let’s say you have a private coaching site where you are using WishList Member to manage an area just for your 10 coaching clients.

But one of the things you want to do is have a page or post that contains information just for that particular client.

The “old” way to manage that would be to create a membership level for each client (which isn’t that big of a deal if you only had 10 clients).

However, let’s say you had 100 clients.

100 clients = 100 levels (now that’s getting a little crazy!)

Well, with this new feature you can assign “per member” access to a particular post or page – which is perfect for a private coaching site where you may want to have a post or page with information specific to that client.

Pretty cool right?

We’re VERY excited to see how you and our other customers begin using this because there are MANY creative applications of this one feature alone.

Here’s a sneak peak:

3)  Custom Post Type Integration

As WordPress evolves, WishList Member evolves with it.

And as WordPress now incorporates Custom Post Types, we have enhanced WishList Member to support this as well.

The “protection” of custom post types was there before, but we just made it better.

So if you like using the Custom Post Types, giddy up because WishList Member now has full support for them

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4)  New Shopping Cart and Autoresponder Integrations

We’ve expanded the list of shopping cart and autoresponder integrations.

2CheckOut and UltraCart were easily two of the most common requests – and they are both now included.

You’ll also find iContact and Interspire Email Marketer in the Autoresponder Integration drop down.

Here’s a look at the new list of integrations with every installation of WishList Member:

 (click thumbnail for a larger view)

(click thumbnail for a larger view)

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5)  Webinar Integration

This integration actually came from our own needs.

When we launched our Membership Training Course one of the things that we wanted to do was automatically register someone who belonged to a membership level to a series of live webinars (that we were running through GoToWebinar.com).

So we built that integration into WishList Member so everyone could benefit

You’ll find this under the “Integrations” tab:

(click thumbnail for a larger view)

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Hopefully you’ve enjoyed this little behind the scenes look at the top 5 new improvements contained in the next release of WishList Member.

There are many more “tweaks” and improvements as well but we’ll save all of the release notes for the “official” release

So based on the 5 items listed above, what one are you looking forward to using the most?  And what do you envision doing with it?

Let us know in the comments below