Teens & Technology: a Survey

A few months ago, I wrote a column for Outreach magazine about using technology to reach teens. It raised some good questions and got us thinking about what we might be able to do differently at LifeChurch.tv. As a first step, we decided to get to know a little more about the students in our SWITCH youth ministry through a quick, informal survey.

Here are the results from the 700 students, ages 12-18, who responded:

Youth Survey Results

Number of students with internet at home: 652 (93.1%)

Number of students with cell phones: 610 (87.1%)

Number of students with internet on cell phones: 293 (41.8%)

Number of hours spent each week on internet (400 responses):  4,440 hours, an average of 11 hours per student. (34 responses of “A LOT” were not included in the count.)

15 Most popular websites in order:
1.    Facebook.com
2.    Myspace.com
3.    Youtube.com
4.    Email
5.    Google.com
6.    Yahoo.com
7.    IMDB.com
8.    Y8.com
9.    Pandora.com
10.    Hulu.com
11.    Espn.com
12.    Failblog.com
13.    Addictinggames.com
14.    Myxer.com
15.    Photobucket.com

If you could make a website, what would you want on it? Music, videos, sports, pictures, games, life advice, life stories, save the earth, Christian stuff, friends, arts, photography, massive explosions, jokes, blog site, fashion, bible, quotes, clothes,  quizzes, recipes, graphics, free stuff, hot girls phone numbers, raise money for causes, Justin Beiber, coupons, a place like facebook (but where you can only say nice things), site about problems we are facing, army stuff, messaging, free money, answers to homework, books, coupons, advice about clothes, dance, art work from students, historical stuff, super gross games.

What surprises you about these results? Do they give you any ideas?

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Tip: Design Websites for Mobile…First

A few months ago, I was visiting a local news website on my mobile phone and noticed how simple and easy it was to access the article I was trying to read. They had designed a mobile version of their website that was surprising easy to navigate and gave me just the information I needed and wanted. I say “surprisingly” because their normal website was the opposite. It is overrun with ads and has WAY TOO MUCH content.

It struck me after visiting their mobile site that we should all design our websites for mobile devices…but do it first! The constraints would force us to ask several hard questions during the design/creative process:

• What is the most important information that a visitor to this site needs/wants to know?
• How can I communicate information effectively with the fewest words?
• How can I make navigating our site (in all directions) elegant?
• What is the least amount of information that I have to require our users to give us and still make their experience valuable?

It’s a matter of making things easy, simple, and understandable for the end user.  Even if you do not have any plans to launch a mobile version of your website (though I think that you should), I think this process will help make your websites more effective.

What are some of the best sites you’ve seen designed for mobile devices? Or what sites do you wish were designed for mobile?

Tags: mobile

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What should the Church be learning from political campaigns?

Earlier today, some of my team were discussing the new Obama ‘08 iPhone Application.  In my opinion, the application is a brilliant use of technology to empower and inform volunteers.  The conversation sparked further discussion about some of the things that the various political campaigns were doing and what we (The Church) could learn from them.  It may be offensive to some to compare the efforts of political campaigns with those of the Church, but I really do think there are many things we can learn including: effective communication, motivating voluteers, organizing large and small groups of people, fundraising, social networking, etc.

What are some specific examples of things that you’ve seen political campaigns do that the Church could/should learn from?  Now, please don’t turn this post into a political rant about who you are supporting or specific political issues that you do/don’t support.  I won’t allow it.  I’m simply interested in what we can learn from the systems, techniques, strategy, tactics, marketing, communication, use of the web/technology, etc.

Also, if you are from outside the US, I’m still intersted in your observations about your own political campaigns and/or your perspective on what you’ve learned from the US election season.

Tags: iPhone, politics

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Is the Church Everywhere it Should Be?

One of the guys on my team, Andrew, pointed me to this post on ReadWriteWeb….

Study: 93 Percent of Americans Want Companies to Have Presence on Social Media Sites

According to the 2008 Cone Business in Social Media Study, 93% of Americans believe that a company should have a presence on social media sites and 85 percent believe that these companies should use these services to interact with consumers. Cone, a Boston-based consulting firm, also found that men are far more likely to interact with a company through social media than women are. 56% of consumers believe that a company is providing them with a better service by interacting with them on social media sites. Read the rest of the article on ReadWriteWeb.

If people expect/want businesses to engage them in their online social spaces…where should the church be? What do you think the percentage would be if the question was about the Church? Higher or lower?

Tags: Social Media

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186,894 minutes spent reading the Bible on the iPhone

Since yesterday’s launch people have spent a total of 186,894 minutes reading the Bible on their iPhones using the YouVersion.com Bible App.  It is now one of the top 50 applications on iTunes.

Our goal with YouVersion.com all along has been to increase people’s engagement with Scripture, and yesterday has proven to be a big milestone in this effort.  I’m really excited to think about all that will happen as more people began to make the Bible a part of their everyday lives.

If you have an iPhone (and soon to include now the iPod touch) I encourage you to download it - it’s FREE.  We are continuing to develop new features for YouVersion, so the website, mobile site, and iPhone app will continue to get better.

Be sure to blog, twitter, and email your friends who have iPhones.  I also really appreciate all of you who have taken the time to write a review on iTunes.  Thanks.

Tags: iPhone

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iPhone Bible Application

Just a few days ago Apple announced the 3G iPhone.  The new phone is faster, thinner, has GPS, and is a lot less expensive.  Those are all great things, but one of the best things announced is the ability for the iPhone to run custom applications which will allow thousands of developers to create new ways to use your phone.  These applications and the new phone will be launching worldwide on July 11th.

We love to leverage new technology to extend the Gospel, and the iPhone’s rapid growth around the world as made it a great tool to use for that purpose.  So…we’ve developed a YouVersion.com iPhone application that will allow you to read, interact with, and search the Bible in multiple translations (for free of course).  It will have many of the features of the mobile version of YouVersion, but will be a much, much better experience for iPhone users.  The future possibilities of what this app and others could do are significant.

Stay tuned right here on swerve to be the first to know when the YouVersion iPhone Bible will be available for download. Feel free to catch a sneak peek here.

How many of you have or plan to buy an iPhone (and where are you from)?

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At the Movies Promo Video

Each summer, we do a series called At the Movies. This series probably has the biggest “invite your friends” factor and every year, we are excited to see more people come to Christ.

Our media design team has been working really hard as they develop some amazing promo videos. Here’s one…If you dig it…you can Digg it here.

Tags: At the Movies, preaching, Series, Teaching, video

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The Reverend Steve Jobs

I know that Steve Jobs is not likely to be a pastor of a Christian Church (since he’s been affiliated with the Buddhist religion), but what would the church experience be like if he were?

Here are a few ideas I thought up on one of my flights. I’d love to hear yours.

• An all-glass front with incredible floor-to-ceiling signage that would welcome you with crisp fonts and simple messaging.
• The lobby would be pristine, the walls would be sharp white with warm lighting accents, and there would be iMacs lining the walls on each side.
• Smiling people in black shirts and jeans would welcome you and kindly ask if they could help you, but quickly retreat if you told them no.
• Walk-in music…(anything from The Beatles).
• The auditorium would have an all-black stage with one large, stage-level screen and two slightly smaller screens on each side.
• The band would be set stage right, completely out of the way of the screen.
• Everyone would have an iPod with their own worship playlist (and if you’re new, one would be provided to you at the door).
• Countdown (using ProPresenter).
• Everyone with an iPod—earbuds in…would press play and simultaneously begin singing different songs (but no one would care, because you couldn’t hear everyone else and they couldn’t hear you…sing away!)
• The playlist would end, and Pastor Jobs would walk onto the stage to thunderous applause.
• Incredible imagery would display behind Pastor Jobs as he demonstrated the iJesus and invited everyone to demo it immediately.
• Everyone would be twittering as they were amazed by the iJesus…“I have to have that!” and “That changes everything!” would cross the twitterfeed.

Oh…and there would be tons of people everywhere.

Now…Did I miss anything? Anything I get wrong? Anything you can add?

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