This review was originally posted on Site Scrutiny, a former blog of mine that I have since closed down, on August 25, 2007. I have merged some of it’s archived posts to Simply-Basic.com.

Tonight’s review was brought to my attention by Alex Schliker, founder and CEO of QuickInsert, LLC. What is QuickInsert? Who better to describe it then the boss himself. In his email, Alex describes QuickInsert and the following:

QuickInsert plugs into your existing website to protect and sell content - no programming necessary! Simply copy your content, documents, or images into QuickInsert and paste the provided line of Javascript code onto your site…all of your protected content and documents (white papers, documentation, and/or manuals) are served dynamically into your website through one line of JavaScript

I gave QuickInsert a test drive to see how it performed. How did it do? Although it has some needed features and functionality missing, QuickInsert is impressive for being a new beta release. I’ve given it three stars, but also tagged it as an up-and-coming application you should keep your eye on.

So why would you need QuickInsert? QuickInsert lets you easily protect your documents or articles by requiring readers to to register and log in on your own site to view the specified content. How does it work?

Overall

To write the article all you do is write or copy and paste your document into QuickInsert’s WYSIWYG editor. When you are finished, you save your document and generate two snippets of JavaScript code: one for the membership login box, the other for your protected content. Unfortunately, the WYSIWYG editor is clunky and unresponsive. I couldn’t get the paragraph to accept a link for the life of me. Every time I told it to save, it would remove any coding for links in the paragraph. The save feature also would periodically stop working, requiring me to log out and log back in to restore its function.

There is an intriguing feature that I haven’t tested. QuickInsert allows you to incorporate a payment system into your membership program. From what it sounds like, once a user registers they will be directed to your PayPal or (eventually) Google Checkout site where they can then pay for their membership. This is a great feature that I’m sure many will find useful. Hmm, if only I could find a way to get people to pay me for these articles!

Overall, I’m fairly impressed with how seamlessly it fits into your site. You’ll want to make sure you paste the JavaScript into a width-defined area, but users will never realize the content isn’t hosted on your site. Also impressive is the AJAX-esque user registration forms. The back end management is also fairly straight forward. From here you can manage your content and users. You can delete or add users, change passwords, and manage payments.

Conclusion

So why did I only give it three stars? QuickInsert has a few problems that need to be ironed out. For example, the administrator has a clear view of the user names and passwords of all members who sign up. I know many people often reuse passwords and would not be happy knowing that any administrator had the ability to view them. Secondly, there needs to be a way to have users who register be sent for moderation before they are allowed to actually view content. This would be useful for sites who want to be more selective about readership (such as family blogs or sites).

Although there are a few issues to be resolved, I am very impressed with QuickInsert. It almost pained me to give it only three stars. But with a little more polishing, I’m sure it will become even better in the coming months as their beta phase matures. Keep your eye on this one, I have a feeling you’ll be hearing its name again.

Useful Articles

• QuickInsert Makes Changes