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

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.

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.