YouVersion 2.0

I had the opportunity this afternoon to jump on an audio conference and screen sharing session hosted by Terry Storch, Digerati Pastor at LifeChurch.tv. Many of you are at least familiar with Terry's name or at least his boss, Bobby Gruenewald. These guys were the brain child behind YouVersion which launched about 18 months ago.

The purpose of today's impromptu, if-you-responded-in-time-on-twitter session, was to give about 40 or so interested folks a sneak peek at YouVersion 2.0, the first major overall of YouVersion since it's launch. While we aren't allowed to show you any of the preliminary screen shots used in today's presentation, we were encouraged to get the word out and let you know what is coming. So here are the highlights I found interesting.

YouVersion API - This will enable many other third party services to access YouVersion and present its content in various forms and ways. If you are familiar with Twitter and the many applications that exist for it, you have some idea of how cool this is and how it opens the door of possibilities to God's Word in ways never achieved before!

Regarding the YouVersion.com website itself:

Home Page - Much cleaner, easier to read and navigate around. You will also be able to customize it so you have the sections you want visible.
Parallel Versions - This handy feature will allow you to put two different versions of the same passage next to each other, side-by-side, in the same window. As you scroll through the chapter, both windows scroll in unison!
My Journal - A very nice improvement here which will be more blog-like and have both expanded and list views. I believe the cleaner design makes this much more likely to be used.
Favorites & Tags - This will allow you to find the content you like much more easily and quickly.
Followers / Following - One of my favorite updates is in the way they are making this more "Twitter-like". You will be able to easily see in list form who you follow or who is following you and have the ability to follow or un-follow right from that dashboard view. Very slick.
Community - This area was overhauled and I believe will help it to really explode in use going forward. If you are familiar with Facebook, then you will appreciate the new community "feed". Much like your Facebook "New Feed", you'll see a summary of what your friends have shared or contributed recently on YouVersion. There is also a tag cloud for all of YouVersion so you can see easily how others are engaging with the scripture and what the most popular tags are.

Mobility Enhancements - along with these web site upgrades, the iPhone, Blackberry and mobile web versions are also going to see improvements. There is very strong mobile use of YouVersion and rumor is the Digerati Team maybe partnering with outside developers to help get mobile versions for other platforms in the future!

All this is going to be going into private beta testing in the coming weeks with a target of April 1 for being in the hands of the general public. Stay tuned, we may see certain components released before others, such as the API.

Now it's your turn. Have you heard of YouVersion before? If so, do you use it? Why or why not? How do you see an updated YouVersion helping you engage with God's Word more?

Comments

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Wow, thanks for the update and the inside scoop! So amazing to see what is being added and enhanced in the 2.0 version of YouVersion!

Posted by: djchuang@gmail.com | February 21, 2009 at 04:01 AM

YouVersion 2.0 is awesome to say the least but I dont see the API you mentioned. I know there has been talk of it. Any news about the API or what the API will expose?

Thanks!

Posted by: Bobby | April 26, 2009 at 05:59 PM

Bobby - The YouVersion.com team is working on the upgrades in 3 waves. The YouVersion.com website itself, the mobile site and apps, and the API. The upgrades to each are on different schedules.

See this post: http://getsatisfaction.com/youversion/topics/any_plans_for_a_public_api_of_some_sort

Also, stay current on updates by following the YouVersion blog: http://blog.youversion.com/

Posted by: Greg Davis | April 28, 2009 at 01:41 PM