Reminder: Webcast THIS TUESDAY, Nov 16!

This is just a quick note to remind you about our very special webcast coming up:

THIS TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, AT NOON CST (GMT-6)

If you haven’t added it to your calendar already, please visit http://www.youversion.com/webcast for details. We’d love for you to join us. And bring your questions! We’re allotting special time to hear from you and make sure you know what we’re up to.

Also, don’t forget to tell your friends…tweet and post to Facebook to enter our giveaway for one of three iPads!

Keep checking back. During the next few days, we’ll be sharing all kinds of exciting news about YouVersion and the Bible app, right here…

Brand New: The YouVersion Facebook Bible App

By the time you read this, we will have already launched the all-new, from-scratch YouVersion Bible App for Facebook. From entirely within Facebook, the Bible App makes it easy to:

  • Read the Bible
  • Switch between different Bible translations
  • Jump directly to specific books, chapters, or verses
  • Select verses or passages and share them, publishing them to your Wall and to your Friends’ home pages

Here’s a quick look at what you can already do in the Bible App (click to enlarge):

We know many of you enjoy spending time in Facebook. And we’d be happy for you to spend even more, especially if that means you’re connecting with God’s Word—and sharing it with others. Eventually, we even hope to bring most of the same features inside our Facebook app that you’ve come to know and love on other platforms. Go check it out and let us know what you think!

New Living Translation Now Available Offline…Free!

For many translations that we offer, YouVersion’s Bible app requires you to be connected to the Internet or to your service provider. But the list of free Bible versions we have available offline keeps growing. Today, we’re happy to announce the addition of the New Living Translation (NLT), available free for download for Bible App users on iPhone, iPad and Android. But don’t wait: This offer is only available until January 31, 2011!

Download the Bible App with NLT!

Downloading the NLT will give you constant access to it, even when you can’t get on your network. The last time the NLT was available offline, thousands of people downloaded it. Now that opportunity is back, and we hope the same thing happens again. We’d love for even more of you to have the NLT directly on your device, so you can engage with your Bible anytime, anywhere. You can learn more about the NLT on their website.

How to get it:
For iPhone or iPad: If you’re using the Bible app for iPhone, first go to the App Store and check Updates [link], and make sure you have the most current version. Then:

  1. Tap on Read, then the blue arrow to view available translations
  2. Scroll to the one you want and tap the green download button

That’s it! From that point on, when you view your translation list, your downloaded versions display with a unique gray arrow icon.

For Android: We recently added offline support to Android and you can read about it here. Downloading the NLT works the same as downloading any other Bible version.

We’re grateful to Tyndale House to be able to offer you this additional version for download for a limited time. Be sure you take advantage of this great opportunity to connect with God’s word!

Special Webcast on November 16

Please join us Tuesday, November 16, at noon CST for a very special webcast about YouVersion. Here’s what you can expect:

  • News about a huge milestone that YouVersion just reached
  • An inside look at some big things coming up, and
  • Vision for where we believe God is taking YouVersion in the future, and how you can play a part.

We’d be thrilled if you could join us and invite your friends.

We’re going to have some fun, and we’ll even be giving away three iPads. YouVersion will send a tweet to announce the webcast, and we’ll automatically register you to win if you retweet that tweet, post about it on your Facebook wall, or if you tweet about the event with a mention. Visit http://webcast.youversion.com for all the details, and then add it to your calendar!

You can follow what YouVersion’s up to in all of these places:

We’re really looking forward to this opportunity to share all the exciting things God is doing through YouVersion, and say a big, “Thank you!” to all of you who’ve helped YouVersion come so far, so quickly in making the Bible part of people’s everyday lives.

Windows Phone 7: The Bible App is Coming!

One mission drives us here at YouVersion: Helping people worldwide engage with God’s Word. We do that by making the Bible available digitally in as many versions and on as many devices as we can. So when the online store for Microsoft’s smartphone platform, Windows Phone 7, launches in the U.S. on November 8, 2010, our Bible app will be there.

Industry analysts predict Microsoft may spend up to half a billion dollars to promote Windows Phone 7, so you’ll likely start hearing a lot about it soon. To us, all that advertising and press represents a tremendous opportunity to connect even more people with the Scriptures. While the special features for our initial release of the Bible app on Windows Phone 7 will focus on social networking and connections, we’re still actively developing it, so we’ll continue rolling out more and more of the functions that YouVersion users on other platforms have come to count on. We’ll keep you posted about new Windows app features as soon as we release them—stay tuned here and on Twitter!

For those of you who choose Windows Phone 7 as your phone, we want you to know… We’ll be there.

Screen shots of the forthcoming Bible app for Windows Phone 7: