Good news for online publishers today: The company Endevver has announced the availability of a new plugin for the Movable Type content management system to enable subscription-focused e-commerce functionality. In their announcement, they describe the plugin as a general-use e-commerce platform, but what is really interesting are the features that speak to subscriptions, specifically:

• Creating subscriptions and accepting recurring payments
• Associating purchases and subscriptions to Web site users (subscriber-only content)
• Support for subscription-focused needs like trial periods, billing frequencies, and subscription fees

In their own words:

We have worked and built subscription based products before so we know just how confusing managing an e-commerce site can be. That is why we have worked so diligently to produce as an intuitive interface as possible. Especially for subscriptions, whose policies around trial periods, billing frequencies, and subscription fees can be very confusing. Using the Store Front plugin administrators can see a human readable description of the subscription model they want to create

The plugin currently supports Paypal, but as Endevver points out:

The Store Front plugin is more than “just a plugin” though - it is a framework that is easily extensible by developers, allowing developers to easily develop drivers for additional payment gateways, as well as giving them the ability to integrate the Store Front plugin into existing systems like Salesforce.com, or another internal billing or CRM solution.

At a time when Movable Type’s own developers at Six Apart seem to be distracted by other projects and priorities, it’s great to see that other development teams are picking up the slack and continuing to push forward what has historically been a great product. That’s open-source software development at work.

Image via CrunchBase

This weekend, I decided I wanted to finally order a copy of Beyond The Echo Chamber. Unfortunately, the book's publisher doesn't offer direct shipping to Canada, so -- after chatting with one of the authors -- I was directed to Amazon. Don't get me wrong: I use Amazon quite a bit. However, when buying a book from a smaller or progressive press -- like The New Press -- I try to go direct, or get it from a smaller distributor. Don't ask me why, I just do. (Probably some incorrect assumption that more of the proceeds will get to the author or some-such lefty nonsense.)

As I finished my order, I remembered that I had purchased Amazon Prime long ago and that -- because of its US-only shipping policy -- I had never used it. Now, Amazon prime was about $75 USD and was supposed to offer very low, or free, shipping in exchange for that annual fee. However, I had missed the rather fine print at the time of purchasing Prime and had, subsequently, never used it. It had long expired, in fact.

Some time ago, I purchased Amazon Prime at the suggestion of the site. However, I was not able to use it as I do not reside in the US and rarely send things to people in the US. I don't feel that the US-only shipping condition of the Prime service is well presented. So, in the interest of future customers, you may want to make that a bit more clear. I'm not formally asking for a refund, but just wanted to make you aware of my experience.

It was probably a bit longer, but that's roughly what I said. The next day -- a Sunday, no less -- I had this response in my mailbox:

Hello,

I'm sorry for any inconvenience you may have experienced.

I've forwarded your feedback about the Amazon Prime membership program to the appropriate department. It is always important for us to hear how customers react to all aspects of shopping at Amazon.com. I'll make sure the appropriate people in our company see your message. Strong customer feedback like yours helps us continue to improve the selection and service we provide, and we appreciate the time you took to write to us.

Thanks for your suggestion about making  Amazon Prime option eligibility criteria more clear to those who do not reside or often ship to US. 

Because you didn't purchase more using Amazon Prime option, I've made an exception to our standard policy. I've requested a refund of $79 to your Visa card. You'll see the refund in the next 2-3 business days.

Greetings from Amazon.com.

We're writing to let you know we processed your refund of $79.00 

Many of the publishers I work with are (still) grappling with questions about charging for content: if, why, how, and so on. These questions can become almost paralyzing when taken to their extreme, and in this situation I've often advocated to "give it away or don’t: pick one," i.e., choose a direction, stick with it for a while, and then re-assess. Nonetheless, there will be those that want to fret over the decision endlessly and to carefully consider every angle -- and those folks will want to have a look at Alastair Bruce's recent presentation about "Charging for content."

Bruce's presentation is a thorough examination of the current state of affairs in the online publishing world. He offers a comparison chart the explores the different models used by major newspapers, local news, and specialist publications. He delves into the specifics of many of the models -- micro-payments, metering, freemiums, etc. -- and leaves us with a nice snapshot of the landscape that's current to February 2010.

It will be a great addition to your weekend reading list, I promise. I particularly liked the exploration of how publishers are pulling social media, search advertising, and other models (membership, etc.) into their revenue mix. Great stuff and hope to see more like this from Mr. Bruce.

(Thanks to Mark Coddington's weekly roundup at Neiman Journalism Lab for the pointer)

Continuing with the theme of stories... I was struck yesterday, when speaking to David Beers, about the sense of community that he's trying to weave into the fabric of The Tyee's newsroom.

I shared with David that the idea of bringing the community into the newsroom -- or the newsroom into the community -- had recently been discussed on the Rebooting the News podcast, and by "hacker journalist" Daniel Bachhuber on his blog, under the banner of "Newsroom as cafe."

David chuckled a bit, as he described his early careers experiences working in the San Francisco-based Pacific News Service newsroom in the 80s. He described it as a place that was open to the community; where "anyone could come in for their Monday [editorial] meeting" and thus take part in the news process.

He finished with the sentiment that these ideas are not necessarily new, but they are often are the ones that have been lost in the contemporary, profit-driven, newsroom. So, as news becomes more narrowcast, and fights to be more relevant to people's lives, it would seem to that these ideas of community-connected newsrooms are ripe to be rediscovered.

It's stories like these that keep me engaged.

One of the things that I love the circulation-guru Jon Spencer for is his devotion to the Church of Measurement. In the recent post about how publishers can build a Twitter following, Jon raises a number of good points about how organizations can measure the efficacy of their social media efforts (should they want to). But, beyond Twitter, what are the other valuable metrics for publishers to track in the age of the Internet?? 

I happen to be a bit of a metrics addict myself, so I thought I would build on the idea of circulation metrics and try to introduce the metrics that I encourage the publishers I'm working with to track. There's no magic here: just a list of metrics that have been cobbled together over the years that -- if measured the same way every month -- can provide an organization with the information necessary to make good decisions. 

I recently received some questions from a friend who's applying for a position as an "online editor" along the lines of "What do I need to understand about Web sites to bring value to an online position?" and "What do I need to know to communicate effectively with my Web-development counterpart?"

These questions come across my Inbox often enough to justify a quick summary of what I think are "Top five" resources for folks making the transition from print to online. These aren't editorial resources, specifically, they're mostly technical in nature (as that's my "thing").

Editors & publishers: have you ever asked yourself the question “When should print content go online?” If so, you’re in luck…

A handful of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to ask some of the most influential publications in the US (and a handful of my colleagues in the publishing business in Canada) that very question.

I received about ten responses, ranging from smaller bi-monthly publications to large weeklies. The responses were very interesting, and quite consistent. I’ve compiled the responses here:

Two exciting and not-to-be-missed events are approaching in June: Social Tech Training and MagNet.

The first — from the people behind Web of Change — is Toronto’s very first Social Tech Training at MaRS.