Hello... Leet i like the idea of coming out with a script that has more to offer then others. My biggest concern is your adding of the deep links and other PAID options.... I see this option as a VERY BIG step for any directory owner making the transitional jump from FREE to PAID directory. You will agree that our industry has much $$$ to offer, it is but a suggestion that you offer this option to PAID ONLY Customers of your script. I personally feel that doing otherwise could lead to negative results as you would be offering Rolls Royces at the price of a hamburger.... which wouldnt make much scence and possibly devalue the market as well as let even more Riff Raff into the Paid arena. Why Dont other script builders offer this? Because they are aware of the circumstances and they make money selling those little extras that make ALL the difference. BOTTOM LINE If they want to drive and act like a millionairs in luxery then.......... Let them $PAY$ for it! . Dont sell yourself short and if you need testers ive got tons of domains for you to use... and i want nothing in return. Lastly Protect your info so that others dont steal from you, do not give access to your Bread and Butter Mods thx malcolm
Leet, you keep saying you have spam protection in place, but I wonder what exactly you mean by that? It's not enough any more to put up an image captcha, and assume that is enough. For good spam protection and accessibility, you need to have a text captcha that can be easily modified by the admin. The ability to ban by IP, email or domain name is useful, and essential to any free directory. One feature on my wish-list would be IP throttling: the idea that there is a limit, set by the admin, to how many sites in the submissions queue can be submitted from the same IP address. Easy templating and good separation of code from design elements is another must-have. If you do this, it will encourage people to design templates for your script. Consider writing a how-to that explains in easy steps how to change all the design elements. Is it just you working on this script? If so, and you have other commitments as well, 2-3 months is probably an underestimate of the time it will take to get this ready for release. For a paid script, the bar is already quite high in terms of the features you need to implement to compete in this market.
Excellent post Malcolm now let's step back one level and look at the whole directory script package in respect to commercial issues and liabilities 1. If the script is released as FREE ISSUE for the turn-key package with all the mods etc i.e The Full Monty, that will begin the quick and assured almost immediate demise and credibility of the package and the pick up will only be secured by downloaders who have no respect for proprietary and confidential software copyright with all the honored service provider support and back-up and fault finding support that is a 100% necessity etc etc 2.It is not possible unless the software release house is backed up by a venture capitalist or similar to release a software application by FREE ISSUE Download 3. Venture Capitalists and business investors will not secure equity in a crowded marketplace where market leaders are successfully selling similar directory scripts in various versions including a fully supported license package that is sold under license to clients who purchase the rights to power their own directory with the licensed script 4 The Directory Scripts Service Providers is fast becoming a mature market place with a handful of highly professional companies selling a range of scripts into the market that ensure 100% functionality 5 These companies also have development teams working on coding new versions of their respective directory scripts 6 We have our own directory script that we have used since 2000 coded in .asp would we release it into the market FREE ISSUE not a chance 7 Would we issue our script into the Directory Market as a Paid Script under license not a chance, why, because why would any commercially aware company invest in an established market place where the market has top scripts that are on offer both for limited functionality versions for FREE and for alternative scripts with more functionality and mods in a Paid Version 8 I am sure the guy in this thread is very competent in coding, but have a real think about all the commercial liabilities before you release a product into the market 9 Would we use a FREE SCRIPT - NEVER unless it came from an established software house with a long and established reputation in the market 10 Please consider also the Directory Script Suppliers in the market today, are very very well established with solid large customer base of users, and they will be astute enough to protect their present market share of users in the Directory Market .............. they will not give up their market share to newcomers without a fight Just imho thats all real simple Markets always welcome newcomers but they have to be highly efficient to enable them to compete
It is indeed a very good post and the replies varied, but as a script developer and a bit of venture capitalist I read this thread with great interest, so good points made but none more pertinant than those in this post, they certainly merit a repost if I may. Releasing a 'complete script' isn't as bad as it seems and your views not entirely accurate. I intend and have even pre-released the phpLynx script as you know which is in effect a full script with full support. No fee is made for it and the only cost to people will be time and effort in populating and templating. If a script is provided as a loss leader for example, (an even stronger version is available at a price then providing a full featured script can be a very good way of marketing). Not entirely correct. Venture Capitalists (investors) are a fickle old bunch, some will come in on a whim, most do thier homework first. My offline companies (financially back what was at first my online hobby project, just to see if I could make a script and then get people to use it), it will now become more serious as I and my backing recognised during the process of 'playing' that there was indeed the need for a new breed of script. I make it clear that whilst at first glance the directory script market does indeed look saturated, if you look closely there are many opportunities that require more than just a 'simple script', I mean no offence to any others out there or thier endevours. If you recognise the opportunities and can provide the resource to cater for this a wise investor will always come along even sometimes for the sheer hell of it, believe me I know. Your actually very far from the truth here, DSSP is no-where near matured as you appear to believe, in reality you could count on one hand how many 'serious' script providers/developers are out there. (You have to exclude opensource in this as there are to many inherant problems with opensource scripts) Your spot on that no venture capitalist would ever invest in a script that was open to plageurism, or manipulation regardless of what level, I know this, I did a massive amount of market research over a long period to ascertain where the market is, I toyed with investing in one script provider with a very large sum, but soon recognised the fundamental flaws and took the other path and produced my own which I could protect to the maximum, (protecting the script is protecting the assets, an opensource script will never have solid assets by the very nature of its being. Now your cooking, this is VITAL. You need in-house developers with a constant finger on the pulse to maintain a steady incline in script model functionality. Again you seem to think the directory marketplace is a pre-established market place, its not. Take a long hard look at the thousands of directory scripts out there, I could not name more than a handful that merit the title a 'Real directory', to me a directory is Yell.com, Kellysearch and the like. Directories mentioned on this forum are primarily link exchanges, link selling platforms and hobby sites, this isnt an attack on directory owners for a lot put plenty of time and effort into them but look at the content of these directories that purport to form a 'market' name me more than 20 sites or more that use one of these scripts and provide a directory of any calibre and content, disregarding the obvious Yell.com types that are funded by thier primary company resources, they build thier own platforms. You always have to give the person the benefit of the doubt. Why's that? What is the difference? You need to give more credability to the buyer of the directory service perhaps. As a businessman I would not be put off buying an ad in a free script just because it was free, I would be more put off by the fact it had little or no conversion to real traffic, not hits but qualified traffic that sends a customer to my store. Isn't Dmoz a quintissentially free script? You'd use that wouldnt you? Your right on this point that a few script suppliers do appear to have on the face of it a 'grip of the market', but what type of market? and in all honesty all it takes to pull this grip away is to market the fact that can or do any of these script providers, produce in any quantity sites that use their scripts that actually do provide converted traffic on a steady basis. I dont mean, do any produce directories with high PR I mean directories that provide Joe Bloggs the builder with work. The fact is that in reality, the exisiting 'main script providers' are going to struggle to keep hold of thier grip as 'monied' people start to realize that there is serious money to be made from creating a directory script if the correct strategy and scriptwriting is used. I've played about on this and many other forum teasing answers out of people but there was a serious method to my apparent madness, I established what I set out to do and find out who to target and who not to; Surprisingly it isn't any of the present script providers, its another arena entirely. Equally just my opinion, but one I hope to prove is valid. p.s. Britishguy, if you want to know why I started phpLynx as initially a hobby and now plan to see it through as a viable commercial entity I'd be happy to send you a private note on this. To the originator of the thread, follow Britishguys advice, protect your assets at all times, don't be fooled into giving anyone, not even beta testers the opportunity to get at the code, this is no aspetion on testers, they are invaluable and paramount to developement (it will take longer but it will be worth protecting your interests). Beta testers are a good bunch but there will always be the one maverick, for some reason this seems to be a fact of life, (look at the great inventors who never protected thier property in the past) who is credited with the patent and copyright of the phone? Keep up your endevours, I personally wish you luck and of course will be watching your progress, that's obvious.
Wow guys, you turned this thread into something interesting to read really @malcolm1, really great ideas there. Thank you for your time. I see everyone is sensitive about anti spam module. I really will try to do my best. I know I gotta do more than captchas. First of all thanks for your time. Can you kindly show me a good example of text captcha? So I will know what to work for. That banning ability by IP, domain and e-mail is already in place. To talk about IP throttling, I think I can fix it also, and add a submission queue limit input to the admin interface. About the templating and separating the code from the design, I have some trouble there I coded them all together, so I've got to separate them I guess. And yes, it's just me. I started coding this script for fun, and for having my unique script since I have many directories running already. I thought it's time to have my own directory script. But later I thought it would be good to release it. Because I started this project for myself, which means I've worked on it with pleasure, since it was not for money or something else. And I really enjoyed coding it, and I will keep enjoying since everyone is so excited about a new, fresh and complete directory script. I hope I can give you all what you want. Thanks everyone for their valuable comments again!
I would like to see more advanced admin features that will help a General directory process pending links faster. Pre-Aproval for registered members mass delete mass approve Preview Link Email Features Ban Users The paid version of PHPLD may already have some of these features already - but I'm looking for an alternative
Mass delete and mass approve options are musts. I'm also a directory owner and I know how annoying it is to go one by one if you have pending links of hundreds. Everything other you mentioned is in place except pre-approval for registered members. Thanks for your ideas.
The PhpLynx script has this feature: basically you can write your own questions, and add as many as you like. If you look at the directories in my sig, you'll see they also have text captchas. I believe Indexscript also has this, but you can only input one question/answer. The important thing with the text captcha is being able to customise it - it's useless if everyone is using the same set of trivia questions. You also need to be able to add plenty of different questions. Well, good luck with it, although I doubt very much you will be able to give everyone what they want with a script: ease of use and complex features are sometimes mutually exclusive. Just build the kind of directory script you would really want to use yourself.
hey leet, i can be your beta testers , i want to have one regional directory but yet to think of which is best one. -toby