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YouVersion Alpha 3.0 Release

Progress, progress, progress. Or you might say, “no rest for the development team!”. Today the YouVersion Development Team released Alpha 3.0. You might not realize it, but less than a month ago we launched Alpha 1.0, and are excited how quickly the functionality is expanding. Your feedback has been awesome, and we are looking forward to welcoming a lot more participants later this week and next.

Today we added the following:

* Content Ribbon (visual content indicator)
* Additional Search functionality and improved design
* Added MySpaceTV video support
* Added Brightcove video support
* Updated Rate It design and usability
* Updated change translation design and usability

A few more features will show up this week before the big “Beta” launch! Private Beta is now less than a week away! So, if you are interested in participating, and have not already done so, please let us know by sharing your email address with us here. You can also subscribe to this blog to get future announcements about YouVersion.

Alpha 2.0 Release

Alpha Release

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Some Alpha Invites Flagged As Spam

It has come to our attention that some of our Alpha invite emails have been flagged as email spam. What a bummer if you guys had an invite a few weeks back but it was in your spam filter! D’oh!

We apologize and have made some adjustments today to help with the problem. On that note, 200 more invites shot out of the system today, and there will be a lot more invites spinning out later this week and next.

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YouVersion Alpha 2.0 Release

On Monday the YouVersion Development Team released Alpha 2.0. We have been in Alpha testing for the past few weeks and are excited as its functionality increases. We appreciate the feedback our Alpha testers have provided us, and we are looking forward to welcoming additional participants in the upcoming weeks.

We’re still working out some bugs, but YouVersion now has:

* Table of Contents – Jump directly to a book and chapter
* Basic Bible Search v.1 – Search for specific verses
* Hot Keys – Use Page Up/Down, Home/End in the Bible Reader
* Mouse Button Scroll – Scroll the Bible Reader more naturally
* Images – Link to Picasa, Photobucket
* Video – Link to YouTube, Google Video
* Tag verses and user contributions.

Coming soon in the Private Beta:

* Full journal functionality
* More options to contribute video and photos
* Expanded, improved search
* Email scripture and user contributions to your friends
* Additional Bible translations
* Direct links to other users’ profiles, submitted, starred, and tagged pages
* RSS feeds linked to contributions
* Mark contributions as Relevant, Rate them, and Flag as Inappropriate.

Many Alpha users have asked about blogging about the project. If this is you, and you are wondering about talking publicly about the project we encourage you to openly discuss your observations. Chad Wright at The Journey Blog discusses his Alpha experience here.

Private Beta is coming soon! So, if you are interested in participating, and have not already done so, please let us know by sharing your email address with us here. You can also subscribe to this blog to get future announcements about YouVersion.

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YouVersion Alpha Release

Six weeks ago, we announced our plans to build YouVersion, an online tool that allows people to connect media and web content with specific verses of the Bible. We have been amazed at the initial interest and response that we have received so far. We also thank all of you who have expressed an interest in participating or helping.

Since the announcement, our Digerati Team has been working diligently to develop YouVersion. Today, we are excited to announce that we have just released the Alpha test of YouVersion to a limited group of participants. We will continue a very aggressive development schedule over the coming weeks, and plan to expand the Alpha test to a larger group of participants as rapidly as possible. We look forward to the insight our test participants bring as we prepare for the Beta launch of the system to a broader audience this fall.

The Alpha release is intended to serve as a “proof of concept”, and does not include all of the features that will be a part of the public Beta release. Here are the basic features included in this release:

  • Bible Reader (currently only public domain translations)
  • Ability to star favorite verses
  • Ability to tag verses with user-define tags
  • Contribute text and associate with verse(s)
  • Contribute embedded videos (YouTube and more) and associate with verse(s)
  • Contribute links to blog posts or web pages and associate with verse(s)
  • Journal feature
  • Ability to view starred or tagged items/verses
  • Overall user interface design and functionality

In the next few weeks we will be adding several additional features including search, quick chapter/verse selector, help content, and much more.

You view screen shots and read more at http://www.youversion.com/

We have been discussing YouVersion with many Bible publishers, and have received overwhelmingly positive responses regarding incorporating their various translations into the project. We have a few publishers that have already committed to the project, and we are now working at wrapping up the licensing and technical details to incorporate their translations into our Beta release.

As we expand the Alpha test, we will email additional participants with instructions on how to login. If you are interested in participating, and have not already done so, please let us know by sharing your email address with us here. You can also subscribe to this blog to get future announcements about YouVersion.