Posted on

Introducing YouVersion in Norwegian

Today is an important day for YouVersion. It’s the day that YouVersion begins a long-awaited initiative to help people around the world engage the Bible, no matter what language they speak. We’re incredibly excited to tell you that YouVersion.com has been translated into the Norwegian language. It’s the first of many steps that will make it possible for millions of people to read the Bible in their native language and in community with others.

To visit YouVersion in Norwegian, just go to http://no.youversion.com. Or, if you’re already on the site and want to switch to a different language, you can click the button that says “English” in the footer of any page on the YouVersion website to see a list of language options. (Right now it’s English and Norwegian with Spanish coming soon.)

Thanks to the generous folks at Norea Mediamisjon, the entire website has been translated by native Norwegian speakers and not by translation software. Human translation means it should be much more accurate and feel more natural. We’re committed to making further refinements as necessary to make sure the site is fully localized (geek-speak for translating a website) and ready for someone who only speaks Norwegian to enjoy.

We have big plans for YouVersion as it moves into the international community and more people around the world will be able to engage the Bible in their own languages. And, as usual, with big plans come big announcements, so stay tuned for more big news in the coming days and weeks!

Posted on

Two Billion

That’s how many minutes you and millions of others in the YouVersion community have spent engaging the Bible on mobile devices! Two BILLION minutes!

Two billion minutes reading the Bible is a huge milestone for the YouVersion community. Since it’s tough to visualize such a huge number, let’s break it down. Two billion minutes equals:

  • 3,800 years (Abraham was alive 3,800 years ago.)
  • 1,388,889 days (You could fly around the world 785,714 times.)
  • 33,000,000 hours (You could fly to the moon 458,333 times.)

While 2 billion minutes is a huge milestone by itself, an even more amazing feat is that you reached 2 billion minutes in a fraction of the time it took you to reach 1 billion minutes. That means Scripture engagement on mobile devices is taking off like a rocket!

More time engaging the Bible— it’s why YouVersion exists, and you continue to break new ground and set new records doing just that. Way to go! Celebrate with us at http://youversion.com/billions or leave a comment below to let us know what you think of people reading the Bible for 2 billion minutes on mobile devices.

Posted on

New for iPhone/iPad: Facebook Sharing & Universal App

The latest version of the YouVersion iPhone & iPad app is available now in the iTunes App Store. This update (2.3.1), along with the previous update (2.3), brings several niceties and one big feature update to Apple’s mobile platform. Here’s the breakdown by version.

2.3
With the 2.3 update, we joined our popular iPhone Bible app with our iPad app to create a single application that runs on both devices. This means you’ll only need to stay up-to-date with one app for your favorite Bible application on both iPhone and iPad. We also moved the “sign-in” to the Settings menu to prepare the way for the biggest update coming in 2.3.1.

2.3.1
We went one step further with 2.3.1 and completely changed how the app handles sharing to Twitter, plus we added the ability to share to Facebook. With the new sharing structure, you can share seamlessly to Twitter and Facebook at the same time through YouVersion Connections (which was also added recently to the YouVersion website, as well as the Palm Pre/Pixi and Blackberry apps). Once you’ve connected your YouVersion account, sharing the Bible with your friends on Twitter & Facebook will be easier than ever.

We have big plans for the iPhone & iPad (iOS) platform in the coming months, but we wanted to get these updates out to you as soon as possible. Let us know what you think by rating the app in the App Store and leaving a comment. Don’t forget that issues can be reported on our support site at http://youversion.com/support.

Connect with us on Facebook at http://facebook.com/youversion or Twitter at http://twitter.com/youversion.

Posted on

New Reading Plan: The Essential 100 Challenge

We’re incredibly excited to introduce a new reading plan to our awesome YouVersion users: The Essential 100 Challenge. It’s the 23rd addition to our diverse list of Bible reading plans, and has some great features that will help individuals benefit from their Bible reading time.

The Essential 100 Challenge is “built around 100 carefully selected Bible passages – 50 from the Old Testament and 50 from the New Testament. It enables [you] to get the big picture of God’s Word and in the process develop a daily Bible reading habit.” The topical, guided nature of The Essential 100 Challenge brings a unique approach to the lineup of YouVersion reading plans.

We’re thankful to Scripture Union for providing The Essential 100 Challenge and helping us make it available to the YouVersion community. Many people have recommended this plan after following it, so if you’re one of those folks feel free to leave a comment below telling us a little about your experience with The Essential 100 Challenge.

Posted on

Looking for 5 Amazing People

YouVersion has been growing by hundreds of thousands of users every month, and as we approach the point where 7 million people are reading the Bible through one of YouVersion’s many mobile apps, it’s time to expand the team. We’re looking for five amazing people to join the YouVersion team and LifeChurch.tv Digerati.

Mobile

Whether it’s on a mobile phone or a sleek tablet, YouVersion’s future will continue to revolve around helping people engage with the Bible through mobile technology. Three new mobile application engineers are needed to keep YouVersion planted firmly in the mobile space.

The exceptional people who join this team will share our enthusiasm for helping people engage with the Bible using technology, be experts on the platform for which they’re responsible, and be able to lead a team of other developers.

YouVersion Partnership Development

We’re also looking for someone who can join the team to help us with Partnership Development; someone who is so passionate about helping people engage with the Bible through technology that they ooze excitement at the mention of the topic. This person is a huge fan of YouVersion who knows how to tell a compelling story (written & spoken) and can build strategic relationships that further the vision of YouVersion. We are no longer accepting applications for this position as it has been filled.

Web

The LifeChurch.tv Digerati team is looking for an extremely talented Web User Experience Designer/Developer to join the team in a hybrid role; working on every web project that the Digerati team develops, including YouVersion, Babelwith.me, LifeChurch.tv, Church Online, ChurchMetrics, OPEN.LifeChurch.tv, and more. Read more about the Web UX role.

Read about all of our openings at http://lifechurch.tv/jobs.