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Announcing New Bible App for Palm/HP WebOS

The WebOS platform was recently acquired by HP, and we’ve been working on some plans for the mobile operating system ourselves. Today we’re releasing a new, fully native Bible app that will make YouVersion’s mobile Bible available to millions more people around the world. We also happen to think it’s the most enjoyable mobile Bible reading experience in the world! Let’s jump into the good stuff…


Improved Bible Reader

● Select and interact with multiple Bible verses at one time.

● Load chapters and navigate the Bible faster and with less load time.

● View text in 5 different size options.

● Read the Bible in portrait or landscape mode with the flick of your wrist.

● Search the Bible for keywords or Bible references more quickly than ever right inside the Bible reader.


More Options for Interacting with Bible Verses

● Share Bible verses with your friends on Facebook and Twitter quickly through the new Connections you have tied to your YouVersion account. (Read more about YouVersion Connections.)

● Share Bible verses with anyone via SMS (text message) and email to encourage someone privately.

● Bookmark multiple verses at one time.

● Create a new tag for your selected verses to group verses by shared topics or ideas.

● Create a new contribution about your selected verses to share your thoughts with the broader YouVersion community.

● View contributions (your own or others’) for the selected verses to get new perspective on that passage or see if yours has changed from when you first posted it.


Automatic Sync With YouVersion.com

This new WebOS app will be the first of our mobile Bible apps to automatically sync your YouVersion activity and data between YouVersion.com and your mobile Bible app. Right now, bookmarks and reading plans are the only two pieces of data that are synced both ways (to YouVersion and back to the device), but more syncing is coming very, very soon.


Reading Plans are Different in this App

● Quickly and easily jump to missed days in the past or skip ahead to future reading selections with a mobile version of the Reading Plan Calendar we introduced on YouVersion.com recently. (Read more about the Reading Plan Calendar.)

● Use the main Bible reader to read your day’s selections so you have full interaction with Bible verses. (We added a simple navigation footer to the main reader when reading your day’s selections so you can quickly navigate within your reading plan selections.)

● Share your reading plan with your friends on Facebook and Twitter or through SMS (text message) or email.


There are plenty more “featurettes” like low-light mode for the whole app, 100% integration with YouVersion Connections, and many consolidated views for faster navigation, but you can encounter those fun little gems on your own.

And the best news of all is that it’s ready for you to download right now in the App Catalog!

We hope you enjoy the new WebOS Bible app. Don’t forget to share the app with your friends on Facebook and Twitter. And if you’re the social networking type, let us know what you think of the app on Twitter (@YouVersion) or Facebook (http://facebook.com/youversion).

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Amazing Opportunity with YouVersion Live on Android Phones

We’ve seen amazing success for the Bible on Android powered mobile phones since we launched the first version less than 9 months ago. People have been able to read the Bible in more than 40 translations and 22 languages since the beginning. Sharing Bible verses with friends, accessing more than 20 Bible reading plans, and a uniquely Android experience have made the YouVersion app the most popular Bible app in the Android Market (and every other mobile app marketplace, too).

That’s why we believe that the addition of YouVersion Live to the Android platform is a significant milestone. YouVersion Live is a unique feature that brings amazing value to the user as well as tens of thousands of churches, Bible studies, and conferences around the world. Download the latest version of the YouVersion Android Bible app now in the Android Market.

For Android Users

Having YouVersion Live on your Android phone will give you the ability to closely follow and interact with the content of any live event that is implementing YouVersion Live into their programming. With the opportunity to quickly share your experience with friends, take notes right inside the app, interact with those leading the event through answering questions and asking for prayer, and the ability to interact with other attendees through polls, YouVersion Live could change the way you experience church, Bible studies, conferences, and more.

So, before you attend another live event, make sure they’re running YouVersion Live so can take full advantage of everything YouVersion and the event has to offer.

For Event Coordinators

With the growth of Android as a platform, the sheer number of people with the YouVersion app installed on their Android phones, and the rumors of tablets and “other” devices in the near future to be running Android, the potential for reaching your audience with a unique, memorable, and engaging experience just got an adrenaline shot. Whether you coordinate regular ol’ church services, Bible studies, or large conferences, YouVersion Live on Android (and iPhone & Blackberry) makes it easier than ever to capture the attention and imagination of anyone in the room (and potentially thousands more through the option to share your event via Twitter, Facebook, email, SMS, and more).

Before you plan your next event, think about the almost 6 million people with YouVersion already installed on their mobile phones and make sure you leverage that opportunity to create an experience they’ll never forget.

Download the YouVersion Android app at http://youversion.com/download or visit http://youversion.com/mobile to see all of our mobile Bible offerings. Visit http://youversion.com/about/live to read more about YouVersion Live. And don’t forget to subscribe to our RSS or follow us on Twitter and Facebook to stay up-to-date on future announcements.

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Tweaks to Connections & New Settings Admin

We rolled out an update to YouVersion.com yesterday that includes a couple changes to make your user experience even better.

Tweaks to Connections

We changed how the Connections work to improve the speed and reliability. Each time you share a Bible verse, a reading plan, or anything else on the site, you’ll find it gets where it’s going quickly. The changes also ensure that your update will be sent to its destination regardless of the state of the destination. That means that you’ll be able to send an update to Twitter when Twitter is offline (in case the Fail Whale decides to make an appearance) and it will be posted as soon as Twitter comes online again.

New Settings Admin

We re-created the Settings area to make room for some cool stuff coming down the pipeline. The immediate changes you’ll notice are the navigation structure and organization of your account information, making it easier to manage your personal info, your password, connections, notifications, etc.

We hope you like these little tweaks and continue to enjoy reading the Bible online or on your mobile device through YouVersion.

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Introducing the New Reading Plan Calendar

Since we launched them in mid-December, the YouVersion Reading Plans have been a huge hit! We’ve seen almost 350,000 people subscribe to one of the 22 reading plans that are available, and users are continuing to sign up at an increasing rate. Many of you have let us know that the plans help you read the Bible more consistently–way to go!

Recently, we revisited the reading plans to make sure they’re as useful and helpful as possible. After more than 100 days of regularly reading the Bible, many users were asking for a couple of features:

1. You wanted a way to quickly go back to past days you’ve missed or even skip ahead to future readings.
2. You wanted to get a feel for your progress in a more tangible way.

In response to those requests, we decided to create one feature that solves both problems. It’s called the Reading Plan Calendar and it makes it even easier to get a bird’s eye view of the reading plans you’re following.

From the Calendar you’ll be able to see the full scope of your plan in calendar format, see which days are complete or incomplete in the past, and see how many days are left in the future. Clicking any day will take you to the reading selections for that day.

We hope you enjoy this addition to the YouVersion Reading Plans because we plan to roll this feature out to all of our current and upcoming mobile Bible apps very soon. To see the Reading Plan Calendar in action, just sign in and go to the overview for any reading plan that you’re following. You’ll see a message at the top of the page if there are any incomplete days in the past. Otherwise, click the button in the right sidebar that says “Plan Calendar.”

Have fun managing your Bible reading with this new tool!