The launch of Sprint’s HTC EVO yesterday was impressive. Many YouVersion team members waited in line for hours, and news reports confirm that stores across the US were slammed with early adopters! So many people were buying the phone, the Sprint activation system stumbled to cope with demand.

Thank you to all the thousands of HTC EVO users who have already downloaded the Bible App by YouVersion…and if you have not downloaded the App yet, simply search for Bible in the Market, or got to http://youversion.com/download

Happy reading…on your new mobile device.

On April 3rd Apple released the revolutionary iPad…and today Apple released the newest iPad model with 3g. Just in time for the iPad 3g, we are happy to announce the YouVersion Bible HD 1.1 app.

New Bible HD 1.1 features:
- Login/Sync to YouVersion.com account
- Access to over 20 Reading Plans
- Twitter integration
- bug fixes

Download Bible HD from iTunes

Over the next four weeks we’ll be giving away a few highly coveted YouVersion T-shirts, a bunch of nifty YouVersion stickers, and the big grand prize…an Unlocked (YouVersion.com engraved) Nexus One phone! Since YouVersion puts the Bible on every web enabled smartphone in the world, we decided to give away the latest mobile gadget available. That makes sense, right? Well, we also have a killer Android Bible App that runs perfectly and looks beautiful on the Nexus One!

We know you want to put your name in the hat to win a Nexus One phone, so here are the details for the giveaway:

• - We’ll do four weekly drawings leading up to the Nexus One giveaway. At each drawing we’ll give away a free YouVersion T-shirt and a handful of YouVersion stickers. (Drawing dates: February 24, March 3, March 10, March 17)
• - The final drawing for the Nexus One will take place on March 17 and will coincide with the end of the South by Southwest conference (SXSW), where YouVersion will be a topic of discussion among thousands of web and software developers and designers from around the world.
• - Go to http://youversion.com/nexusone to sign up for the giveaway. Make sure to follow the directions!

What are you waiting for? Go for it!

We are continually blown away by the growth of YouVersion and want to thank you for the huge part you’ve played. Sharing Scripture, your reading plans, and YouVersion Live events on Twitter and Facebook or by email has caused God’s Word to spread faster than it ever has before…virally. Keep it up!

We wanted to take a moment and celebrate passing a big milestone: 4 million YouVersion mobile app users on the iPhone, Blackberry, Android, Java, and Palm. Here is what the growth curve looked like over the past 6 months:

It’s exciting to see so many people engaging with Scripture on their mobile devices, as well as the growing momentum of YouVersion mobile apps. Each month, 500,000-600,000 new users install the YouVersion Bible app on their phone or mobile device. Here is a look at our top 3 mobile platforms over the past 6 months:

Top 5 iPhone Devices:

1. 1. iPhone 3G
2. 2. iPod Touch
3. 3. iPhone 3GS
4. 4. iPhone Edge
5. 5. iPod Touch (first generation)

-We also see some iPad users have YouVersion installed!

Top 5 Blackberry Devices:

1. 1. 8300/ Curve
2. 2. 8330m/ Curve
3. 3. 8900/Curve
4. 4. 9000/Bold
5. 5. 9630/Tour

Top 5 Android Devices:Top 5 Android Devices:

1. 1. T-Mobile G1
2. 2. Motorola Droid
3. 3. T-Mobile MyTouch
4. 4. HTC Hero
5. 5. HTC Eris

We’re passionate about mobile because it’s proven incredibly effective in allowing millions of people around the world to access Scripture. As you may remember, just over a month ago we celebrated that YouVersion users had spent over one billion minutes reading the Bible on their mobile devices and we expect to hit 2 billion very soon.

Because we’re so excited about hitting this milestone we’re going to follow it up with a little celebration. So take a moment to subscribe in the sidebar follow us on Twitter or become a Fan on Facebook and stay in the loop!

Phase one of YouVersion’s scaling process was completed a little over a week ago. It involved both hardware and software upgrades to help handle the increased traffic from both website visitors and mobile application users. You can read more about that process here, but we’re already seeing drastic improvements in up-time and reliability.

While the engineering side of YouVersion’s scaling was under way, we quietly started a project to scale our support infrastructure to better serve the millions of new users that are being added to the YouVersion community. With YouVersion adding more than 10,000 new users every day, it was apparent that our former support setup wasn’t going to work.

Nearing the end of 2009, we set out to overhaul our user support infrastructure so that it could scale to serve tens of millions of users efficiently and effectively.

First, we moved from GetSatisfaction to Zendesk (http://support.youversion.com). Zendesk allows us to support users one-on-one through a private ticketing system while maintaining an open forum environment where the YouVersion community can help each other find answers. Second, we assigned a single person to be responsible for ongoing support. This doesn’t mean that one person has to answer every support request. Rather, this person is responsible for making sure the YouVersion community is cared for, heard, and helped. It’s more of a leadership role than a “customer service representative” role.

The most important change has been who supports the YouVersion community. While we have a dedicated support manager to guide and lead in this area, we’re going to start leaning on volunteers to provide answers and troubleshoot problems for other YouVersion users. The volunteers we’re trusting with this role are handpicked to join this team; the YouVersion Community Champions.

If you’re interested in being a YouVersion Community Champion, here’s what we’re looking for:

- Used YouVersion for at least 4 months on a very regular basis
- Very familiar with the main website and at least one YouVersion mobile application
- Displayed the ability and willingness to meaningfully help other YouVersion users in the public support forums by answering questions or providing guidance

We’re excited about how this new approach to user support will provide value to the entire YouVersion community. If you’d like to know more about volunteering for YouVersion support or in other areas, go to http://goo.gl/9CkB. If you’d like to sign up immediately, go to http://goo.gl/XixQ.

With the new system in place, we’re confident that we’ll be able to continue to effectively support the ballooning YouVersion user-base as it grows into the tens of millions. And what’s more, we’re prepared to make constant adjustments and improvements as necessary to make sure the YouVersion community is always well cared for.

For the past few weeks our team has been focused on bringing stability and reliability to the YouVersion infrastructure. You can read a few posts about the process here and here. I am pleased to announce we have completed the first phase of that process, and had a very successful and stable weekend…more here and here.

As you are aware, YouVersion is growing at an amazing rate – over 1/2 million new mobile users added in the last 30 days, and over 250,000 new registered web users this month alone! We are not seeing growth slow down, so we are also preparing for continual scaling (phase 2, 3, etc.) to be able to handle the additional users.

Finally, with all this scaling and infrastructure talk you might be thinking we have stopped ongoing development…well, that is not the case! Look for some fun and exciting releases and announcements in the coming weeks.