YouVersion Beta is Now Public
Three months have quickly passed since we revealed the concept of YouVersion.com – a free online Bible that connects the interactivity of Web 2.0 with the timeless truths of scripture. After several stages of Alpha testing and one Private Beta release, we are excited to announce the Public Beta version is now LIVE and ready for you to explore!
Simply go to YouVersion.com to see how it works. Everything is free and will remain free, but to interact with some of the personalized features you’ll need to go through a simple registration process.
Here is what you can do with YouVersion in this release:
• Search for scripture, jump to a book/chapter/verse, or scroll through our Bible Reader
• Star verses and content
• Tag verses and content
• Contribute and/or associate images, videos, links, and text to verses or series of verses
• Start journaling in the “My Journal” feature
• See what others are sharing
• Email items to your friends and family
• Rate content
• And so much more…
Currently we have integrated the following Bible translations:
New King James Version (NKJV) - Thomas Nelson
New Century Version (NCV) - Thomas Nelson
English Standard Version (ESV) - Good News Publishers/Crossway
King James Version (KJV)
World English Bible
American Standard Version (ASV)
Smith and VanDyke Arabic Bible
We have signed license agreements and will very shortly be making available:
The Message (MSG) - Navpress
Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB) - Holman Bible Publishers/B&H
We also have a commitment from:
Contemporary English Version (CEV) - American Bible Society
At this point, default translation will be King James Version, but you can easily change that if you’d like by simply clicking on the title.
Our Digerati Team has been eating, sleeping, and dreaming all things YouVersion for the last three months and it is nothing short of incredible to see how their commitment has paid off as we are right on schedule. I’d also like to express our appreciation for the hundreds of Alpha and Private Beta testers who contributed their time and given feedback! Additionally, I’m very thankful for the publishers who have captured the vision of this project and been willing to allow us to use their translations. We certainly couldn’t have made it to this point alone.
This is just the beginning. Several more features will be rolling out in the coming weeks as we continue to develop this tool.
Now it’s your turn to discover YouVersion and help us make it better by giving us feedback during this beta release. For those of you that blog, we’d love to have your post your thoughts about it. I look forward to seeing what God has in store for this new community of people reading, reflecting, and sharing how God is moving in a brand new and exciting way. I’ll see you there!
Visit 
Bobby, it has been an opportunity of a lifetime to be a small part of this amazing project. The future is very bright, and the list is really long! :)
I echo your remarks, the team is amazing and they did a wonderful job for sure. Team, you guys rock!!!!!!
Stay tuned…there are some really awesome things coming in the near future to YouVersion.com.
Just when I sold out to ebible, you had to come along with this. Very nicey…
[...] Check out the Swerve Blog for more details… [...]
Absolutely wonderful. Great job! Thanks for all of your work.
This is what it’s all about.
[...] Enjoy it, play around with the features, and dig in along with me. Below is more information about YouVersion.com courtesy of the Swerve blog from LifeChurch.tv: [...]
You guys did an outstanding job on this one.
I’m continually inspired and impressed by the content and innovation that you produce. It’s amazing.
I wrote my thoughts on it here.
Thanks so much for all you’re doing!
Congratulations team! I will enjoy watching YouVersion develop.
THIS ROCKS!!!!!!!!!!! Great work guys.
[...] **Post from Swerve** [...]
great job Bobby, Terry and everybody else!
Bobby & Digerati Team, nice application. well thought out. any kind of content mashups in the works?
I’m going to give this a serious test drive.
Steve Brewer
Communications & Technology Catalyst
http://www.communitychristian.org
http://www.newthing.org
http://www.3cms.org
I’m very impressed by this and I truly believe that many of the apps you guys are creating are the next wave of how we “do church”. Thank you.
By the way what sort of traffic are you experiencing?
[...] Sep 28th, 2007 by snshields Bobby Gruenewald announces: [...]
Wow..this is amazing! Thanks a lot!
I know the team appreciates all of the kind words.
Kurt, the guys at ebible are great, I’m sure you’ll remain sold out.
Steve, we have a few things in process…at this point the focus is on getting the app to work well and getting critical mass on the contributed content…then I think you’ll start to see some relationships and “mashups” present themselves.
Jeff, I don’t have a stats summary yet. In the first few hours, I believe we had hundreds of registrations. We’ve done extensive load testing on the servers, so we “should” be ready for a decent amount of traffic should we get it. Now we are focused on getting some real-world traffic and feedback. :)
Grrrrreat. Job guys. Left my comments and short review on my blog.
Nice. Nice. Nice.
Todd
http://digital.leadnet.org/2007/09/ebible-vs-youve.html
Posted a review here, love to hear comments as to why I’m wrong.
Tim,
I don’t know that I will be able to deliver the “smackdown”-flavored response that you might be looking for. I’ve talked with the guys behind eBible and I think what they are doing is great…and even getting better from what I hear.
In regards to your post…first, thanks for catching a few of the (likely thousands of) bugs. I know that the team is working very hard to fix all of those, but it does help to have many sets of eyes on it. Second, I don’t think you are wrong…I think you are right…we are in beta and there are LOT of features and work to be done still. I did not take the time to explain all of what is to come in my post, but to address most of your thoughts…
FINDING CONTENT:
the Bible reader view will not be what people see when they come to the site after v1.0 launch. Instead it will be a dashboard view that draws out content and verses in a manner that is much more targeted to a non-Bible reader crowd. We also have several widgets that are in development that will pull both scripture and contrib/scripture content to the edges (blogs, etc)
CONTRIBUTING CONTENT:
As far as the chicken and egg problem…we understand that and agree…that is why we have started this public release and are working behind-the-scenes with several media producers and churches to create some critical mass for content in the coming weeks. Content producers have seen the value in this tool and have been contacting us to find out how to become involved. Regarding your suggestion that people should(or will) continue to write their thoughts on their blogs…I agree with that too. That is why we are working to make it very easy to pull and post content to YouVersion from wordpress (and likely others) simply by tagging your posts with verses. In general, we are looking for many ways to “automate” the process of content contribution and have it work with other workflows easily.
In general, I agree with most of the issues that you point out…we just hope to have many of them addressed before the first version is complete.
We have a great team of people who have worked very hard on this project in addition to many other projects we have cooking (but, I am sure you understand that). In their effort to put their heads down and deliver this beta version, I’ve not done a great job of publicly painting a clear picture of what the long-term plan is. So it’s more about why I’m wrong and not why you are.
Thanks for the feedback…I hope that helps.
Bobby, often I write blog titles just because they are fun. Thanks for taking my post as it was intended.
Beta is beta, I admit it’s not fair to compare it to eBible. And I do know that you have spoken to eBible.
Great to hear that you’ve thought about the initial view. That is totally where you can innovate especially if you can figure out how to draw in non-Bible readers using user-generated content.
Great that you will be working on a way to extend YouVersion off the domain via widgets.
Critical mass for user-content, great!
Does that mean we can look forward to an API? That will let me post to WordPress and push it over to YouVersion? Or something like that…
I hope that you (and your team) get that its will a passion for great Internet products that I do agitate a little bit. Thanks for the response.
Bobby,
Congrats. Will you be including the New Living Translation in the mix soon as well?
I’ve tried twice (last Friday, then again today) to create a user account. I get to the Form, fill it out, click submit and nothing happens.
I back out and try to log in and it says “account not found”
Have you talked to the guys at Bible.org about getting the NET Bible translation? Since they are committed to open source. It may be an easy addition.
[...] Tuesday, October 2nd, 2007 in Bible Study, Christianity Tags: Bible Study, Christianity, YouVersion if you enjoy Bible study, and want to join a community of others who enjoy it as well then you need to check this out. As the beginning of this i think it will be really good, but as the community grows i am sure it will see many of the same problems that have faced wikipedia. hopefully every one will remember to be Christians in the way to talk about Christianity. at any rate, this could be a great resource, especially for those who don’t want to spend hundreds of dollars on Bible software. [...]
[...] It’s currently in public beta testing. Here are more deets from a post at Swerve.LifeChurch.tv. • Search for scripture, jump to a book/chapter/verse, or scroll through our Bible Reader • Star verses and content • Tag verses and content • Contribute and/or associate images, videos, links, and text to verses or series of verses • Start journaling in the “My Journalâ€? feature • See what others are sharing • Email items to your friends and family • Rate content • And so much more… [...]
NO better comment, because it’s all there in YouVersion.
I love YV! Miss Jeane (58)
My dear brothers, what an awesome piece of work you have done with YouVersion. As a retired Southern Baptist pastor, I have only recently become more involved with the Bible of computer and now on my phone, thanks to you guys. May God continue to bless you and your church and I look forward to more of what you have to come. If I can be of any service to you, please feel free to ask. I would love to help in any way I can.
Thanks again,
Bob