Category: News

You may remember us asking you back in December to help us out by voting for us in the 2010 Mashable Awards. We just wanted to give you a quick update on the results. Last week, Mashable announced the winners at a special ceremony at the 2011 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES). We’d like to congratulate eBuddy, a messaging service who took home the prize for Best Mobile User Experience, the category in which YouVersion was nominated. While we did not win, we were proud to at least be named as a finalist. You can see the full list of winners at Mashable’s website.

We especially wanted to take a moment to say thanks to all of you who participated, for nominating us and especially to those who voted for us!

If you’re reading through the Bible this year—whether on your own or joining us in our challenge to read 1 billion minutes in the Bible App™ during January—have you considered sharing what you’re up to? Jesus said we’re salt and light. When you openly tell others what God is doing in your life, you never know what He’ll do in the lives of those who hear it.

We’re blessed to live in a time where our opportunities to communicate are unprecedented in human history. Just 20 short years ago, if someone told you you’d be reading this blog right now, you wouldn’t even have had a context to understand what they meant.

Here are just a few ways you can share with the Bible App:

• Share on your social networks. Mention @YouVersion on Twitter and in Facebook status updates. “Like” YouVersion on Facebook, and share the Facebook app and our page in Facebook. You can share individual verses—even your Reading Plan! We’ve tried to make it easy.
• Write Notes about what you’re reading. When you mark your Notes as public, you can share what God’s showing you in His Word with everyone using YouVersion.com and the Bible App. (They’re on YouVersion.com, iPad/iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry.)
• Help your friends install the Bible App on their mobile devices. It’s free! It’s on iPhone, iPad, Android, BlackBerry, webOS, Java and Symbian.

And here are some other ways you can share:

• Encourage your friends to read the Bible (whether in the Bible App or not).
• Write about your Reading Plan on your blog. Consider not only covering what you’re reading, but challenging your readers and followers to join you.
• Serve as a YouVersion volunteer in one of the many roles we could use help with: proofreading, user support, app testing, design, development, and more. Click here to sign up.

The ways you can share are limited only by your own imagination. Who are you praying for? Who do you know who needs to hear the message of God’s love? You don’t have to give them a hard sell. You don’t have to be a Bible scholar with a theology degree. All you need to know is what God has done in your life…and tell somebody.

Yesterday we talked about the value of telling the people in your life about your goals. Today we’ll talk about taking that even further.

Ecclesiastes 4:9–10 says, “Two are better off than one, because together they can work more effectively. If one of them falls down, the other can help him up. But if someone is alone and falls, it’s just too bad, because there is no one to help him.”
(Good News Translation)
Proverbs 27:17 says, “As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend.”
(New Living Translation)

We need our friends. YouVersion makes it easy to recruit your friends and family to help you. When you sign up for a Reading Plan, consider taking just a minute to set up progress update emails that can be sent to a friend. (You can send them to yourself, too!):

1. Sign in at YouVersion.com.
2. Select My > Reading Plans.
3. Click the link or the [Plan Overview] button for the plan you want help with.
4. Click the Accountability tab (lower right).
5. Turn Accountability on (lower left).
6. Add each friend you want to receive updates.
   Note: They’ll need a free YouVersion.com account, and they need to be following you.
7. Check your box if you also want to receive updates.
8. Click [Save].

That’s it! Of course, things happen. If you happen to miss a day, it’s easy to get back on track. Just pick back up where you left off. You can even go to your plan at YouVersion.com and click the “Catch Me Up!” link at the bottom of the page, or go to your plan on your mobile device, view the Plan Info page, and tap the [Catch Me Up] button.

We hope you have a great year diving in to God’s Word!

Today begins many firsts: It’s the first day of 2011. The first day of January. And the first day of the God-sized goal we first shared with you back in November: To see users of the Bible App™ spend at least 1 billion minutes reading the Bible during just the month of January. Will you join us? Studies have shown a huge gap between how many people want to know more about the Bible…and those who actually read it. What about you? Why not make this the year that the Bible becomes a part of your daily life?

We’re ready for you! The Bible App is available on nearly every mobile platform, so you can read, take notes and share what you’re learning with your social networks. We have more Reading Plans than ever (more than 50, with even more on the way)! They’re a great way to walk through the Scriptures.

Here’s specifically what you can do to participate:

1. Read as much Scripture in the Bible App as you can during January.
   (Signing up for a Reading Plan makes it easy.)
2. Tell your friends about what the YouVersion community is doing. Tweet. Post status updates to Facebook. Write about it on your blog.
3. Help friends and family install the Bible App on their mobile devices.
4. Invite people you influence to join the revolution to discover (or rediscover) God’s Word.

Up for a serious challenge? Consider signing up for the Bible in 90 Days. Did you even know you could read the entire Bible in just three months? You can!

We can’t think of a better way to kick off 2011 than to devote ourselves to sharing the Bible, a book we love, with as many people as we can.

2010 was crazy here at YouVersion. God did some astounding things. At the beginning of January, the Bible App™ had been installed on slightly more than 3.1 million unique devices. As 2010 draws to a close, it will have been installed on almost 13 million!

Another number we watch closely is total minutes spent reading the Bible using the Bible App. At the end of December 2009, our users had read just over one billion minutes. While that’s pretty amazing, as of the time of this writing, users have spent just over 4 billion minutes reading with the Bible App. We’ve even invited our users to join us in January 2011 as we try to reach 1 billion minutes in just one month!

2010 saw a more rapid pace of development at YouVersion than we’ve ever experienced before. Here are just 12 snapshots from the year, in chronological order:

1. January: As YouVersion added almost half a million new mobile users with the Bible App right at the end of 2009, we stumbled out of the gate in early 2010. Our core infrastructure simply couldn’t keep up—especially during peak times on Sundays. Throughout the month of January, we added capacity and scaled up our architecture to lay a firm foundation for sustained growth.
2. February: For literally hundreds of millions of Java-enabled devices (not necessarily smartphones), YouVersion offered the Bible App for Java-enabled devices. And just as the update of webOS was being bolstered by the Pre and the Pixi, we announced the Bible App for webOS.
3. April: Although no one even had an iPad yet, we wanted to ensure we’d be able to offer the Bible App for iPad the first day it was in stores.
4. June: YouVersion had been adding connectivity to our platforms for some time, and by summer, simple Facebook and Twitter sharing had come to most of them. Today it’s easy to connect your free YouVersion account and share online.
5. July: YouVersion passed the milestone of 2 billion minutes read using the Bible App. Reaching this position midyear would lay the foundation for us to hit more than 4 billion minutes by year’s end.
6. August: YouVersion began formally offering “Free Bible” pages for those organizations who request them. We wanted to offer partners a way to add value to their existing efforts, while at the same time sharing YouVersion and the Bible App with more people than we could reach on our own.
7. October: As YouVersion’s Android user base continued to grow, we began offering offline Bible versions for Android users, the result of many publishers kindly making their Bible versions available for download, including HCSB, RVR60, ESV, GNT, CEV, Czech Bible21, and NLT. Anticipating that Windows Phone 7 would represent another large user community, we also formally debuted the Bible App for Windows Phone 7.
8. Early November: The film The Social Network arrived in theaters, Facebook announced they had passed 500 million users, and YouVersion released the Bible App for Facebook. We continue to develop this app into a richer user experience right inside Facebook.
9. Mid November: YouVersion hosted a major, live webcast to share some big news: reaching the 10+ million installs milestone and announcing Notes for YouVersion.com. Our viewers generated so much interest that the webcast even became a Twitter trending topic in the U.S. Shortly after, Notes came to BlackBerry, iPhone/iPad, and Android.
10. Late November: Because we rolled out new versions on new platforms over time, different requirements for each led to our logo becoming inconsistent. In late November, we consolidated the Bible App logo everywhere to limit confusion among our users.
11. Mid December: In Apple’s 2010 Rewind, the Bible App™ by YouVersion appeared in iTunes’ Top 10 Free Apps in the Reference category. At one point, the Bible App climbed as high as the number 7 overall free app, passing even the free version of Angry Birds!
12. Late December: YouVersion offered more than 50 Reading Plans across every platform, helping our users easily schedule their time in Scripture. We also introduced Badges, a fun incentive for Bible engagement. Global Share the Bible Day was a resounding success, with users sharing things they loved about the Bible—favorite verses, meaningful experiences, and their faith. Just yesterday, we shared a phenomenal statistic: The Bible App was installed 1 million times in just 11 days…more than one install a second!

As you can see, the end of the year saw a disproportionate spike in news and events, as YouVersion and the Bible App gained momentum on the way into 2011. We’re excited about all the things God is doing, and we can’t wait to see where He takes us together next! We’re happy to offer you the opportunity to take part, whether it’s through the billion-minute challenge, participating in Reading Plans, or in our many volunteer opportunities. Thank you for being a part of YouVersion’s success in 2010!