There is a subtle distinction between website users and website members.
A user is usually anonymous or treated as anonymous, whereas a member is considered a valuable resource and is treated and managed as such.
A website member has many characteristics that depend on the website in question and its purpose.
Typical member characteristics usually include: name, email address, username (to access the website) and password. Such typical characteristics are available out-of-the-box in most content management systems (CMS) - such as Joomla!™, Drupal™, WordPress™, etc.
But what if our member oriented website was created for our church or our school? In such cases our members would need to have further characteristics, e.g., parent/student/teacher, address, parish, age, gender, favorite teacher, favorite priest, etc.
Our members website has to be able to properly communicate with certain members possessing specific characteristics. E.g., we might want to send an invitation to all students and parents associated with the freshman class of our high school.
Membership software is used to support the members concept of a members website which can also include additional functionality like restricting access to specific content for members not possessing specific characteristics. E.g., Students not permitted to view teacher resources, etc.
Some websites also offer membership status on a subscriptions basis, charging a one-time or recurring fee for member privileges.</>
You can transform your Joomla website into a membership website with the assistance of Community Builder™
And you can add membership subscription features on top of this using CBSubs™.