Licensing

• How are your products sold?
• Am I buying or renting?
• Can I just license Frontkick Enterprise?
• Why are the Sidekick and Frontkick Enterprise licenses different?
• I want to license Sidekick. What next?
• Your system is so cheap/expensive!
• How will you deliver Frontkick Enterprise and Sidekick?

Features

• Will you add a feature my site needs to Sidekick?
• Frontkick Enterprise doesn't quite do what I want!
• Aren't there other systems like this one?
• Do I have to include your branding?
• Can I control Sidekick programmatically?

Miscellaneous

• Can you build out my entire site?
• Can I see examples of sites based on Frontkick Enterprise/Sidekick?
• Do I have to know Java to work with Sidekick?
• What skills are needed to build my site with Frontkick Enterprise and/or Sidekick?
• What about hosting?
• How much bandwidth is needed?
• What does a client need to download?
• Is this a peer-to-peer system?

Licensing

How are your products sold?

All our products are sold and supported directly through Nearly There Network Technologies.

Am I buying or renting?

That's a great question. We use a hybrid approach that brings forth the best of both options.

Technically, software isn't rented, it is licensed. This means that you are never buying the software, you are simply given the rights to use it for some period of time. So, the question of buying or rented is better stated as "Am I licensing it forever or for a limited period?"

Now, we don't believe that software of this sort is useful to you without full technical support and updates. We believe that the purchase represents a partnership and selling you something without clearly defining the extras would be inappropriate.

For Frontkick Enterprise, the license is forever (perpetual) with support and upgrades priced yearly.

For Sidekick, the license with support and upgrades is yearly. After the first year, the price is considerably less.

Total cost of ownership is the key to look at. With our system, you'll be able to predict all your costs in advance.

Can I just license Frontkick Enterprise?

It normally wouldn't make any sense to license Frontkick Enterprise without Sidekick. Frontkick Enterprise relies on Sidekick for videochat capabilities and wouldn't be operational without Sidekick.

To be specific, for correct operation, at a minimum Frontkick Enterprise requires Sidekick and Sidekick's Pay per view option.

Why are the Sidekick and Frontkick Enterprise licenses different?

Because these products are very different from a support standpoint.

Sidekick is a highly-complex technical product, written in Java, for which we take full responsibility for maintaining and enhancing. In fact, 99.9% of our clients wouldn't have the capability, let alone the interest, to dig into our codebase! So for Sidekick, a license that includes support and upgrades is critical.

On the other hand, Frontkick Enterprise is written in PHP and all the source code is included. PHP is the de facto web language and many, many people are available, at a reasonable price, that can modify and enhance Frontkick Enterprise. So, for example, if you customize your copy of Frontkick Enterprise, you might not want our support and upgrades!

I want to license Sidekick. What next?

For Sidekick, we ask you to sign a standard license agreement. Please send us the following information and we'll generate and email you an agreement for your to review: company name, full name, address(es), phone(s), email(s), other contacts if any, and the domain name that Sidekick will be hosted. (For Frontkick Enterprise, we use a click-through license agreement.)

For payment, please see the bottom of our pricing page.

Upon receipt of a completed license and payment, we'll create an account for you on the nearlythere.net site and you'll be able to download the software. This whole process can take less than a day.

Your system is so cheap/expensive!

We get lots of feedback about pricing. But which is it? Some tell us our products are inexpensive because they have seen similar systems costing from $15,000 to $25,000. And others tell us our products are too expensive because they have seen similar systems for hundreds less. So which is it?

To those who think we're inexpensive, that's because our design objective was to surface the feature set of these more expensive products at a lower cost. We are confident that you can create sites like you would with these other more expensive products with Frontkick Enterprise and/or Sidekick.

To those who think we're expensive, we are very much aware of the changing landscape and have recently taken concrete actions to remedy this. We've lowered our overall pricing so that our pricing is highly competitive with these less expensive products. One pricing change that you'll notice is that first year cost is down from 11% to 25%, depending on configuration. Another change is that our renewal price has been lowered by 50%, which still includes all support and updates. If you are comparing Frontkick Enterprise/Sidekick to a product with a one-time purchase price, consider the total cost of ownership over time. Thriving for your continued business each year ensures you a better and better value from Frontkick Enterprise/Sidekick.

Also, these products tend to have many features so they are difficult to directly compare against each other. For example, Frontkick Enterprise is very, very customizable and includes PHP source. How about the other product?

How will you deliver Frontkick Enterprise and Sidekick?

We're an Internet company, so of course, we deliver our software on-line!

As our client, we will create an account for you on our site. On our home page, just click on "My Account" and login. You'll be able to download Frontkick Enterprise and Sidekick. The My Account area also includes releases notes and other valuable information.

Features

Will you add a feature my site needs to Sidekick?

Absolutely! We are happy to discuss with you special capabilities that are important for your site. In fact, most of the features in Sidekick started from specific client requests.

We will charge you a fee, which we refer to as an Expedite Fee, for adding this feature, which will become part of the standard Sidekick system. Folding in your feature is a great advantage because this feature will be documented, supported and maintained as part of Sidekick -- meaning that this unique feature won't keep you from updating to newer versions of Sidekick in the future.

With your input, we will spec out this feature so that you'll know what will be implemented and we'll know what to do. We'll quote a price and a timeframe. And then we'll get to work!

Frontkick Enterprise doesn't quite do what I want!

We built Frontkick Enterprise to handle the requirements of common pay per view sites. In other words, chances are that Frontkick Enterprise could be used as the underlying engine for many pay per view sites today and any differences would be minor.

If there is still a feature that is missing, it can be added in various ways. Since most of the PHP source code is included, a skilled PHP programmer can implement this feature. Also, for a fee, we will customize a copy of Frontkick Enterprise to include this feature for you. (These custom features will only be in your copy of Frontkick Enterprise.)

Lastly, we consider Frontkick Enterprise a living product and are open to feature requests. If you can make a strong case for this feature, and we consider it to be useful for a wide range of clients, you might well find it in a future version of Frontkick Enterprise.

Aren't there other systems like this one?

Sure. But there are key differences. Over the years, we've found that each client wants something a little (or a lot!) different than the next guy. We've taken this to heart and created products that are highly customizable so that your site can be completely unique. With our products, there is no reason that your site will look and act like other sites.

Second, our system is complete. It doesn't rely on any other software that must be licensed. First, we run on open systems like Linux and MySQL rather than Windows and SQL Server. Second, Sidekick includes a powerful streaming platform rather than requiring, for example, a separate Flash Communications Server license. These costs can add up, for example, the Flash system is priced based on bandwidth whereas Sidekick doesn't have a usage restriction.

Also, and perhaps more important, we believe that our product significantly reduces the cost of entry for small and mid-size sites as well as the technical know-how needed. If you operate a small or mid-size site, nothing can beat the value of Sidekick!

Do I have to include your branding?

No. We have included a number of features that allow your clients to be unaware of the underlying technology that your site uses.

First, the "Powered by Nearly There" logo can be easily removed. The html pages are templates that can be customized with exactly your look and feel. In fact, the look of the client videochat applet can also be configured as you wish.

Second, Sidekick includes a hide Sidekick feature, so that clients that snoop around won't even see the usual Sidekick home page -- it is replaced by a plain login page.

There are additional, more subtle changes that can be made depending on your requirements. Our intent is that Frontkick Enterprise/Sidekick can be configured so that your clients will have no direct knowledge of the underlying technology.

Can I control Sidekick programmatically?

Yes. This is an advanced capability that allows an outside system to fully control Sidekick. In this scenario, the outside system and Sidekick would be in a master/slave relationship, allowing the outside system to manage your videochat sessions completely.

Sidekick exposes an extensive API that allows an outside system to have complete knowledge and control of it. For example, when key events occur, such as a show starting, Sidekick can send an event to your outside system. As a second example, the outside system and request information from Sidekick (e.g., return a list of live shows), and request actions (e.g., terminate a show).

In fact, Frontkick Enterprise uses precisely this fully-documented API when it communicates with Sidekick. So, if you wish to write your own control system, creating a truly unique offering, Sidekick includes complete support for this.

Miscellaneous

Can you build out my entire site?

Definitely. We can work with you to understand the kind of site you want. Our skilled designers can build out your site to the point where you can go live. We can customize the look and feel, connect to your billing system, configure Frontkick Enterprise and Sidekick, and ensure that the site operates correctly.

If your role is more of a businessman, we can get you up-and-running fast! Leave the hassles to us -- we know the problems to avoid, the issues that arise and the questions to ask. We'll build a site which meets your unique requirements.

If you are interested, please contact us and we'll put together a quote for you.

Can I see examples of sites based on Frontkick Enterprise/Sidekick?

Certainly. Just ask us and we'll be happy to provide some examples.

For marketing reasons, even though our products can be used on adult sites, this site (www.nearlythere.net) doesn't include adult content. That's why we're unable to list sites here.

Do I have to know Java to work with Sidekick?

No. Very few of our clients have any working knowledge of Java. In addition to this, most people installing Sidekick don't know Java!

Although the system is written in Java, that is all "under the surface." Your interaction with the system will be at a higher level. We've made sure that Sidekick is easy-to-use. From the documentation to Sidekick's thorough administrative pages, Sidekick will allow you to get what you want to get done fast! We invite you to look through our documentation or log on to our system as an administrator to get a sense of this.

For our manual, click here. For our demo, click here.

What skills are needed to build my site with Frontkick Enterprise and/or Sidekick?

The short answer is none! You can hire us to build out your site. Let us direct the process -- you can concentrate on your business and we'll do the rest. Of course, you need to provide input such how you want the site to look and function, but we'll help with this.

You can also build out your own site independently. The skills and the amount of work depends on the degree of customization that your site will require over an above our standard system. The most common steps are these:

• Installation
  Setting up and installing Frontkick Enterprise/Sidekick to a virtual or dedicated server. We provide thorough step-by-step instructions so you can do this yourself. Alternately, for a small Setup Fee, we will bring them up and ensure that it is running correctly. Or it can be installed to a Virtual Hosting account that we offer.
• Customizing HTML pages
  Take Sidekick: Sidekick displays a few HTML pages -- ones that are directly associated with the video system. The two key pages are a whos live page, displaying a list of live shows; and a launch page, which is the page with a client's videochat session. There are several other secondary pages which are primarily feedback pages (such as access denied). We provide one very nice template for these pages which are used as a starting point. These pages are in a standard HTML format and are stored as text files. They include directives that Sidekick uses to insert dynamic content, such as the name of a performer. Frontkick Enterprise is similar but includes more pages because it can handle the entire site.
• Configuration
  Frontkick Enterprise/Sidekick are very configurable and includes many properties that can be changed. The defaults are reasonable, so you only have to change the ones that are unique to your business. For example, you can tell Sidekick whether or not to display the last few text chat messages when a new client enters a show. As another example, you can customize the list of purchase options with Frontkick Enterprise.
• Billing
  With Frontkick Enterprise, you'll need to establish an account with a billing company, such as paycom.net or ccbill.com. Frontkick Enterprise includes configuration pages to enter details and connect to this billing company. With Sidekick, you'll configure it to restrict access so that only your members will be able to access you videochat sessions.

What about hosting?

Frontkick Enterprise/Sidekick can be easily hosted on a dedicated server which is available at most ISPs. The minimum server requirements include a Red Hat Linux server and good connectivity to the Internet.

Depending on the traffic level of your site and your architectural designs, you could have Sidekick hosted on a virtual or dedicated server. For busy sites, Frontkick Enterprise are commonly hosted on its own server for performance reasons.

Here are the requirements for a dedicated Frontkick/Sidekick server:
- *Must* be at least dual core, if running SK and FK on same server.
- At least 2G memory
- At least 80G hard disk - fast... scsi preferred or at least fast SATA disk
- Current Red Hat Linux or exact clone (Enterprise, centos, fedora) - freebsd works *great* and handle much better the load.
- Current servlet engine such as Tomcat 5
- Sun JDK *must* be installed , not the diablo port
- Java: 1.5 required. Java 6 WILL NOT WORK - java 1.5. not 1.4, not 1.6
- Apache 2.0 with mod_rewrite module
- MySql 5
- PHP 5.0 or 5.1 with GD library and curl library support
- ioncube php init extension is needed
- eaccelerator *MUST* be installed for performance improvement
- SSH shell access
- ports available:
- port 80 (for http communications)
- ports 2224-2230 (one of these is used by Sidekick for video/audio communication)
- dedicated IP address We can only provide support for installations that use these standard components.

How much bandwidth is needed?

Answering this question really takes a lot of knowledge as to how Sidekick will be deployed and used. But the quick answer is about 150 kbits/second per video stream. That is, first you add up all the shows that are live plus all the clients in those shows. Then, you multiply by 150 kbits/second. This will give you an estimate of the total bandwidth required (to and from the server) each second. Finally, extend this for the amount of time each month that your site will be active and you'll have your monthly usage.

Now, that I've given the easy answer, let's be more precise! Actual usage depends on many, many factors. This list describes many of these variables:

• How many shows are live? Each show will transfer data ... but only when there are clients.
• How want clients are in each show? Each client will receive data
• What is the quality of the video stream? If you present a smaller, slower stream or no stream in public chat that is less usage
• What is the frame rate of the video stream? The more frames per second, the more bandwidth
• How much capacity does each performer and client have? If their connection is limited, the stream will be throttled back.
• How many hours a day are shows live? Some periods tend to be busier than others.
• Is audio being streamed? Audio can add about 10% to the bandwidth requirements.
• Is the standard video or the Streaming option used? You might use a bit less with the Streaming option
• Are optional features such as recent frames or a preview display used?
• What is the capacity of the server itself, in terms of bandwidth and CPU?

What does a client need to download?

Nothing. Our client is a plug-in less Java applet. Over 90% of the world's web browsers support Java. This tight integration of browser and Java allows the videochat to be placed seamlessly with a web page, giving web designers full flexibly in site design.

In addition, Java's ubiquity on the web guarantees that your video will be viewable by the largest possible audience.

Is this a peer-to-peer system?

First, just to make sure we're talking about the same thing: A peer-to-peer system is one in which two computers send data back-and-forth without using a central computer (or server) as a go between.

Our system is not peer-to-peer. A performer does not directly send or receive information with other clients. All information sent between users goes through our servers.

This provides total anonymity from user to user. At no time is any information revealed that might be considered a security breach such as a user's IP address.

In addition, it meets our requirements for scalability in the following way. Under a peer-to-peer arrangement, video and text from a performer must be sent to each peer. Since a performer's Internet connection normally can't carry as much bandwidth as a servers', a performer can only accommodate a few clients before a slowdown is noticeable. On the other hand, with a centralized system like ours, a performer can have any number of clients without degradation.

Finally, consider the issues of control. In software, the more that we control, the more that the experience will mirror our minimum requirements. By placing the responsibility for this transmission on the server, the software is able to track variations and to adjust to them on-the-fly.