Goal/Purpose of the Group CASEWWW is a co-operative group. That means we are dedicated to the premise of helping each other. The goal is simple--to help each other increase sales of our software, books, and other products/services. Toward that end, members will provide to other members fully-licensed, fully-usable versions of their products. Problems found (if any) will be reported to the the supplying vendor for correction. Otherwise, members will review/blog/comment about other members' products. Links will be exchanged. Members will be expected to include other (non-competitive) members' advertising on their own website(s). Active bloggers who seek higher search engine rankings are also encouraged to join and blog/review/comment according to the same rules. Members will be carrying links to your site and will be encouraged to comment about and link to your blog in their own writings. Again, the idea is to help each other. Overview 
This is a group designed primarily for Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) and book authors who are also Web Masters, i.e., they control their own websites' content. Others who have online product sales may also join the group if their products fit well and they control their own websites' content. Active bloggers who want to help their search engine rankings and who are in need of content are also encouraged to join the group.
I. Requirements To Join 1. With the exception of active bloggers, you must have a product or service that is sold online. Normally, this is expected to be computer software, books, etc., but there's really no limit except as shown below. ISVs (Independent Software Vendors) and book authors are naturals for the CASEWWW group. Book publishers, software distributors, and others are encouraged to help the group by becoming sponsors for the website as well as for our meetings. For more information on this, click here and email us at ITSBITS®. 2. You must have control of your own website's content. That means you can (and will) add a link from your website to other members' sites and you can blog/comment/review on your site about other members' products. 3. For software vendors, you must make fully-licensed, free copies of your software product available to the other members of the group so they can use, test, and comment about the software. The same will hold true for books. For "hard" products, you will need to make at least some product available for the members you want to comment on the product. (You may be able to loan an evaluation or give them a slightly-damaged example or something like that if you can't afford to just give them one to evaluate and write about.) No one is ever asked or expected to review a product they have not had an opportunity to evaluate. 4. You must include a link-exchange page on your website (see below) and it must include at least 80% of the group members' links. (No, you don't have to link to a direct competitor's website--that's what the 80% figure is all about.) 5. If you sell products on the web, you must review/comment/blog about 12 or more members' products during a 12-month period (averaging 1/month). If you are an active blogger, i.e., you do not sell product on your website, you must agree to review/comment/blog about 18 or more members' products during a 12-month period (average 1.5/month). This requirement may include reviews of members' books/software and/or blogs/commentary/reviews of other members' "hard" products. II. Other Rules: 1. Not Allowed The following is a list of products/services/content that will not be accepted into the group:
--payable when you join the group. 3. Failure To Perform
III. Benefits/Requirements 1. Link Exchange Since your website will have many more incoming links, it should place higher in the search engines. However, you must note the word, "exchange." This requires your website have a clearly-visible link on your home page (to a page on your site) of "Other links," "Links of interest," or whatever you want to call it. That page must include links to other member's websites along with a brief description each site. As an example, the code for a link to our website would be like this: <a href="http://www.itsbits.com" target=_blank">www.ITSBITS.com</a> Catapult Garage software for virtual desktops, tech support, and more. Network connectivity troubleshooting software, Job-1 software to monitor critical services, and more. The site also carries lots of information about the Birmingham, Alabama, area and is home of the ITSBITS® Marketing Group. Note that hate-language, foul-language, gambling, and any kind of pornography is not allowed within the group. That means you don't have to worry about cross-linking to fellow members' sites. Any such "stuff" will automatically be cut out of the link-exchange and other members will be notified as appropriate. This will be at the sole discretion of the group's leaders and will be without recourse of any kind. You agree to this by joining the group, so if you cannot agree to it, you should not join the group. In addition, as stated above, you are only required to maintain links to 80% of the other members' sites. That's so you don't have to link to your direct competition's sites. However, you should know that even though it's counterintuitive, the real truth is that having them on your link-exchange page will help more than hurt--you'll be better off to link to 100% of the other members sites. 2. Blogging 
This is a mutual software/product sharing and admiration society. Members are to try to help each other.
The first thing that means is that we'll need a description of your product(s) so that other members can select (from our private website section) what they want to blog/comment/review. You'll only be able to post a maximum of 10 products--not thousands--and you'll have to give us the information to do that. We'll show the other members the information you give us so they can select your product for review/comments/blogging. The information you'll make available to other group members will include your email address and you'll need to supply them with a registration code and the actual product they're going to review. (This requires you to give your fellow members a free, fully-licensed copy of your software, book, etc.) Supplying this to your would-be reviewer will be your responsibility and keeping up with whether they actually blog/review/comment on it on their website is also your responsibility. More on that below.
Once you select a product for blogging/review/commentary, should you find a problem, you'll be required to email your fellow member about what you found and let them fix it. The idea is to blog about how great the software/product is, not to dump on the other guy's product(s). They'll be doing the same for you. This requires you to give your fellow member a free, fully-licensed copy of your software, book, etc. For other kinds of products, including "hard" products, you may be able to loan them an evaluation or give them a slightly-damaged copy or something like that if you can't afford to just give them one to evaluate and write about. You will have disclose this information in the information we post on our private website section.
3. Advertising Each member is expected to place other members' ads somewhere on their website. Because of this, each member is also encouraged to place usable HTML code for their ad on the private member's site as well as a sample of the ad to show what it should look like. An example of our own ad and its code is shown here as an example:
4. Annual Meetings Plans call for at least one annual meeting of the group. We're still working out details on this, so we'll say more about it later. Plus, we will also attempt to hold an annual meeting in association with the SIC annual convention. (For 2008, the SIC meeting will be in Boston--learn more about that at www.sic.org ) 5. Press Releases 
Members will be expected to include a "Press Releases" page on their website and to post other members' press releases on that page. In order for their press releases to be accepted--members will need to give the CASEWWW group leadership an HTML-text copy of their press release. These will then be included in the newsletter we send out so that the group's members can post them on their sites. (The CASEWWW leadership will not be able to "wrap" your press release in HTML code for you.) Members will not be expected to post the press releases of their direct competitors. (Note that inclusion of press releases on your site will help with your search-engine optimization efforts.)
6. Newsletter We will endeavour to email a monthly newsletter to each member. This is a larger undertaking than it sounds, so it may slip sometimes...the real goody will be in the private section of our members website. 7. Private Website Sections Once you're a member, you'll gain access to "The Private Sector" where we handle membership "stuff."
8. Privacy Of Your Contact Information 
The CASEWWW group will take reasonable and prudent steps to prevent any leakage of your contact information from our servers and/or systems. We cannot be liable for the information if another member gives it away or uses it improperly. We will not store your credit-card or financial information on our servers or network, so we don't have a problem there at all.
ITSBITS® is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as the property of IHS, Incorporated. | |||||||||||||
