I'm eager with anticipation for the revolutionary Web Bible that just launched as a public beta over at YouVersion.com. I'm writing this as an alternative follow-up to last week's eBible vs. YouVersion: Web Bible 2.0 Smackdown [disclosure: I have worked for a Bible organization in a previous position, where we had explored all kinds of possible ways for online Bible engagement.]
Even though I haven't followed every detail about the development of YouVersion, seeing how quickly this Web 2.0 Bible was developed and released as a beta, and knowing of the creative geniuses behind the development team, I have high hopes (as they do) for what YouVersion will do to leapfrog the use of the Bible all over the Internet and on mobile devices. Where I see the potential of what they're building, even though all the functions aren't there yet:
- YouVersion could provide both community and enabling technologies -- not only would user-generated content be hosted and linked to verse(s) within the YouVersion community, widgets could make YouVersion content easily available at personal blogs, social networks, and church websites as well; as an enabling technology service, YouVersion could make it very easy for a church that's teaching through a series to embed the associated Bible verses with its own set of tags, videos, and commentaries
- YouVersion would have tag clouds that make it easy to browse tagged and starred verses (#34) -- this would leapfrog beyond the concordances in the back of printed Bibles and towards a dynamically generated concordance and cross-reference
- easily link to verse(s) or embed into your own blog or website (#21; even as a WordPress plugin) -- dream of an easy-to-use hyperlink for a Bible verse something like http://www.youversion.com/John/3.16/kjv/ (merely hypothetical; I think the Digerati team will figure out an even better solution)
- facilitating group Bible studies (#25) -- sometimes Bible studies are done topically with a carefully selected set of verses, and if YouVersion could pull those verses into a handy one-page print version, that'd be a very nice feature
- most popular verse or user-generated content of the day, week, month, or all time -- I know for me, to browse the things that are creating the most buzz at social networks and/or on the Web is compelling and engaging, and to see what's popular within the Bible could be really insightful
- highest-rated verse or user-generated content -- similarly, people can rate things associated with a Bible verse or passage; the essence of this wild idea is that anything you can do with content on the Web, you should be able to do with the Bible
- automagically link to user-generated content outside of YouVersion -- this would be a big-bonus idea along the lines of Technorati; so that blog can ping the YouVersion server, and link in user-generated content without having to login to YouVersion; the big idea here is to make it very easy to link in user-generated content with YouVersion
- filtering user-generated content -- there's lots of diversity on how people form their convictions based on how they read the Bible; sometimes you want to hear from people you trust, and sometimes you'll want to hear from alternative voices. It'd be great for YouVersion to have user profile settings that indicates one's theological persuasions and biases, but, then again, with over 3,000 denominations and sects in the USA alone, this can wind up being quite a drain on server CPU cycles
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