The news has been pretty steady since the Britannica announcement (via NY Times):

…After 244 years, the Encyclopaedia Britannica is going out of print.

Those coolly authoritative, gold-lettered reference books that were once sold door-to-door by a fleet of traveling salesmen and displayed as proud fixtures in American homes will be discontinued, company executives said.

In an acknowledgment of the realities of the digital age — and of competition from the Web site Wikipedia — Encyclopaedia Britannica will focus primarily on its online encyclopedias and educational curriculum for schools. The last print version is the 32-volume 2010 edition, which weighs 129 pounds and includes new entries on global warming and the Human Genome Project…

But, you’ve been reading here for sometime. This transition is something you’ve known about and have already adjusted your perspectives, behaviors, and tools towards.

Oh. You’re surprised?

Well, maybe we should talk some about how to help you or your publishing team/group transition to more/full digital approaches?

Going Digital But Not Losing Impression
Maybe its something easier for us to say since MMM started as a mostly-digital artifact. But, we get it. Some people don’t forsee changing, and are throughly offended if the emotional connection and appeal to this idea that bits and bytes can replace the acquisition and internalization of material via text. It takes massive cultural movements to consider and change to a different approach – and in some cases, you have to be throughly compelled.

That’s where you start thinking about it now though. What are the core characteristics of your content, of your relationship to your consumer audiences and your advertiser audiences? What does going digital (whether that’s mobile, social, or distribution methods) enable or hinder? Do you sense a loss of control to that core message, or the attachment to those audiences if you go digital? Are those fears grounded in reality (statistics, case reports, etc.) or on perceptions gleaned from your contexts (media, conversations, etc.)?

When we stopped creating a downloadable magazine, it was in part because of the time, energy, and resources that were essentially wasted for too small a return. Going digital distribution only we had to make some decisions on control (what if people could subscribe via email, RSS, SMS) and frequency (multiple times a day to once a day) alongside other considerations. In the end, this move works for us based on the needs of our audience. We’ve got more to do, and digital affords that in part without totally upending agreements, contracts… those logistical concerns. At the same time, we had to be firmer in what we wanted to do with this channel.

Britannica is making those same decisions. Logos (who’s cited in our previously linked 2011 report) has made and continues to make thesse changes. You’ve got to move forward, while keeping a clear sense of what made you valuable. Its not the smell of the paper, its what was on those pages that you offered that no one else could. Capture that in your digital transformation and watch digital be the ripe and fertile ground you’ve been looking for.

I sat there just to get a few minutes away, and hope that a friend would swing past. I was looking to ask him a question about where he worked. But, in the space where I usually see him there was another gentleman. Similar in age, a bit more fit in appearance. He and I gathered some small talk and then his friend, another man show was slightly older, sat down. He was a friend of the first man, and they were having a connection time. I drew back into my mobile, but listened in on occasion.

The man whom I was looking for soon appeared. He sat down. He was a part of the connection group happening with the two guy already sat down. Being the common person between us, he introduced me to them and we began to talk. These guys were retired, they’d traveled to places and in means I’ve only heard in stories or seen in movies. There was a sense that they enjoyed their years, and look forward to those that come behind them finding their own trails.

At one point, the conversation turned back to technology. But, not mobiles and web, radios. They started in just talking about how they used to have to tune the radio to find a program. One guy looked at me and said, “you don’t know anything about that do you?” I do. I used to have fun turning the nobs, listening for whatever wasn’t too filled with static – and hopefully not a commercial. I found plenty of music that way. These guys weren’t talking about tuning the radio for music though – its was about finding those comics and dramas that sparked their imagination.

Then they started naming shows, The Shadow, and several others of which I’ve heard of, but never had that experience of sitting in a living room, with the family around, just to take in the story together. They talked about how the stories were just audible, just enough sound to make your mind create the scene. And the best stories, how they left you in some sense of suspense and surprise, yea, that was how they remembered having their imagination stroked. 

“But, not today,” the last gentleman who came in spoke. “Today, the TV does all the imagining for you. The pictures are made for you. And its so immersive. Now, there’s 3D…” He tailed off. I smiled. It was his generation that gave us these home and personal moving pictures, but now he was pushing back against it. Where it was helpful for connecting, it was detrimental for imagination. Without that imagination, there was no vision for living better. Where there was no vision for living better, there was so solid work ethic.

And so the conversation switched again, as it did several times in that hour or two that I sat there with them. These men, men how married and lost, fought in wars and strove for better lives in peace, were tuning my radio. I couldn’t be sure that I’d ever have their perspective towards the value of analog or “simpler” technologies. But, I could see how they appreciated moments enough to be sure that I got to hear what about the former media was good to hold onto, and not lose as we do move forward.

On Twitter recently, Gordon Marcy and I had a brief convo where I was asking about the value of broadcast communications (TV, radio, etc.) compared to participatory communications (web, mobile, and social). He alluded to the trust relationship that people have with broadcast communications compared to participatory. There’s not much tuning needed with those, there’s a reputation that’s assumed when those channels are used. But, with web, mobile, and social, there’s some tuning needed. People are still looking for what makes the channels necessary, valid, worthwhile. And if they are worthwhile, does that mean worth making things better for consumers or advertisers? Who’s imagination gets stroked to improve life around them?

It is a jump to say that web, social, and mobile are good enough. They are in some respects. But, when they take over the imagination or abiltiy for people to connect the dots themselves to see the depth and beauty of this faith, then maybe its not as valuable. Maybe, at that point it needs to be tuned a bit differently. And when it is, to be open to the signals coming as well as the signals going. We’d like to have this work for the Kingdom yes, but only if the Spirit compells, not if we wedge them into this.

I always find a gem or two within the Carnival of the Mobilists, even if there are those moments when I’m not able to keep up with the weekly postings. Over the past two weeks, the Carnival has had plenty to choose from in terms of relevant articles which create some avenues for thought and potential activity.

For example here’s a snippet from the 263^rd Carnival, posted at MobyAffiliates:

First up Carnival Queen Peggy Anne Saltz who brings her regular video blog providing analysis on the evolving mobile voice market, looking at new developments such as Siri and similar innovations.  There’s loads more in this vodcast, which is full of really rich and useful information and discussion so go check it out:

Second-up a guest post from Michelle Manafy drawing on her new book, Dancing with Digital Natives, looking at how to motivate the ‘Millenial’ generation in a world of changing economics, high youth unemployment and rapid change:

Second in the ring is Yomi Adegboye from the excellent Mobility Blog.  Yomi has a quick post about his plans to go “mobile-only” and use mobile computing for all his IT needs.  Armed with just an iPad and an assortment of handsets can Yomi stick to this mobile-only regimen?  This blog is well worth checking out for a view of the burgeoning mobile market in Nigeria.

And then there’s this snippet of insights from No. 264, posted at MobiThinking:

First up, we have an avalanche of mobile stats and analysis from Tomi Ahonen’s Communities Dominate blog The State of the Union blog for Mobile Industry. This is a must-read piece for any marketer that wants a true picture of the mobile business. Did you know that the global installed base of smartphones is 19 percent and that Nokia’s Symbian still has the largest share (just ahead of Android) or that SMS has overtaken voice as the number one activity on mobile devices?

Well some brand marketers are clearly getting the message… After flirting with apps, it seems that brand marketers are re-embracing text as the most important channel. But SMS should focus on customer engagement, rather than just being one-way conversation, i.e. more than just a money-off voucher, points out Mobile Insider’s Steve Smith, and their role model should be Obama 2012. Read: From Obama to Brands: Leveraging Participatory Engagement.

A sobering piece by Matt Kapko at Eye on Mobile highlights the plight of those workers at Foxconn in China who make sought-after mobile devices for Apple, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung and many more, in The real human cost of our mobile devices. Foxconn employees regularly work 12-hour shifts at a starting salary of US $1.78 an hour… so how many hours must they work to buy an iPad (assuming they don’t eat)?

As you can tell, there’s much to be said in and around mobile. The various perspectives of those folks who work in the industry, in-line with and apart from larger organizational directives, tends to give mobile that taste of something a bit more than just “fast food.”

If you are invovled within the mobile minsitry (#mobmin) space, and you’ve been writing about mobile from that perspective, I’d really like to encourage you to submit your writings, case studies, or proejct summaries for inclusion into the Carnival of the Mobilists. Information on how to do so, and what your response needs to be if selected, is noted on the website. If you are a causal reader of things online and just looking for something a bit different, the Carnival of the Mobilists is an excellent means to spread your reading wings a bit as well.

Personally speaking, there’s not much better in terms of “readers digest”-style reads than the Carnival – especially when joined with a hot tea or coffee beside.

Was meandering about the web when I saw a note from John Dyer speaking about a new(ish) project he worked on with the Digital Bible Society (DBS). Called the Bible Browser, its very similar to the apprach I’ve taken with the All Books Project in terms of making a Bible reader that is built with HTML, CSS, and jQuery. John’s a better coder (by a few country miles) than I, and there were several groups participating in this project, so the end result is a good bit more polished, and further ahead. Still, the Bible Browser represents what I think should be the base level of performace and integration we should be seeing in the use of HTML as a platform for publishing with the Bible starting as the foundation.

Here’s a bit more about the project from John’s announcement:

…Now, there are already lots of amazing Bible website and applications out there today built by wonderful Christian brothers and sisters, so it might seem unnecessary to build yet another Bible application. Each of these has a place in what God is doing in the world, but the software that DBS creates has some special requirements that necessitates something new:

• Must be able to run without Internet access
• Must be able to run without being “installed”
• Must be able to run in any browser on any device

In a country where it’s illegal to follow Christ or ask about Christianity, installing Bible software and accessing Bible website are big no-nos, so this security is absolutely paramount. The best solution we have so far is to create an HTML/JavaScript application that runs on whatever browser the user has installed.

The challenged is that HTML-based applications can be a bit slower than full desktop software (like the awesome apps Logos, Accordance, or SWORD) and since we are designing them to run without Internet access (like the amazing YouVersion or Biblia) they can’t have a powerful server to do things like process search queries. This makes for some interesting programming challenges, but it’s also part of the fun of doing something different to serve the church at large. The app also needs to be able to run on very basic phones with limited HTML/CSS support, another fun challenge.

For those technically inclined, the basic setup is that each chapter of the Bible is a separate HTML file linked together by jQuery Mobile which makes browsing the Bible work really well on basic phones all the way up to iPhone/Android. Then a desktop application reads these same HTML files and uses them to produces the multi-pane application you see in the video above…

• Try the Bible Browser Live Demo
• Download from GitHub

Very cool stuff. We’ve added it to the Bible Apps page and definitely want to encourage you to check out the Digital Bible Society’s website and support their efforts. John Dyer also has some other neat projects which are great to take a look into (Bib.ly, Bible Web App, etc.) and support.

Now, back to work on All Books… am encouraged to continue and persue this project’s direction.

SoundBender is the brainchild that sprung forth from the creative mind of Moshe Weiss of Simply Amazinc, a start-up based in St. Paul, Minnesota. Moshe set up a KickStarter campaign soliciting funding for his unique product. With a goal to get things running, backers from all over have almost tripled the amount of the requested goal. Needless to say, there are many people who believe in this gem of a gadget, and I’m one of them.

What Does It Do?
Have you ever struggled to hear the sound coming from your iPad 2? While the speakers are pretty loud, they face away from the screen as they are located at the back of the iPad 2. The SoundBender attaches to your iPad 2, and amplifies the sound emanating from your speaker by redirecting it, or “bending” it back to.

It’s a smart-looking, light-weight device that snugly attaches along your iDevice by way of plastic arms that hold onto your unit. It requires no power to use and is sturdy and looks pretty slick. It comes in a variety of colors for you to choose from for those of you who (like me) are into mixing and matching accessory colors to your device and/or case.

Features and Recommendations
The SoundBender comes with arms that have magnetic clips for a more secure hold, as well as arms that come with no magnets included. I’ve tried both versions, and both not only held steadfastly, there was no reduction in the sound quality.

I was able to experiment using a couple of cases, namely the Yaboo leather case and the Saddleback Leather Case. Yaboo has pinholes in the speaker area of its cases. The SoundBender would not fit over the casing and I would have to remove the case in order to use the device. Ironically, even though the Saddleback leather case is much thicker than the Yaboo, I was able to attach the SoundBender without any problems. This is because the Saddleback case has a cut-out over the speaker area allowing users to insert the SoundBender in the available opening.

Perhaps future versions of SoundBender could include an adjustable arm that expands or contracts and locks into place, in order to meet the varying sizes of the myriad cases on the market. This would definitely meet the demands of more people with cases, broadening the target SoundBender audience. However, in its current form, it does a great job of improving the overall listening experience.

Conclusion
Simply Amazinc has produced an essential, must-have accessory that is sure to please everyone who has ever wished that the sounds coming from the back of their iPad 2 could be enhanced and amplified. With the SoundBender, the nuanced sounds from your games or songs you may have missed because of the position of the speaker, or you simply didn’t have your headphones with you, can now be better heard with a compact and sleek, power-free device that bends the sound back to you, for a more enriching listening experience. The SoundBender is innovative, intuitive and flat-out impressive!

• Rating (1-10): 10
• What I Enjoyed: Compact and portable, yet powerful and practical.
• What Could Be Better: The accessory doesn’t fit over some cases
• Price: $15 base price with more options to show your support. Please see the website for more pricing details.

For more information and to contribute to this project, visit the Simply Amazinc Kickstarter project website.

Format

SoundBender is the brainchild that sprung forth from the creative mind of Moshe Weiss of Simply Amazinc, a start-up based in St. Paul, Minnesota. Moshe set up a KickStarter campaign soliciting funding for his unique product. With a goal of $4,500 to get things running, backers from all over have almost tripled the amount of the requested goal. Needless to say, there are many people who believe in this gem of a gadget, and I’m one of them.

What Does It Do?
Have you ever struggled to hear the sound coming from your iPad 2? While the speakers are pretty loud, they face away from the screen as they are located at the back of the iPad 2. The SoundBender attaches to your iPad 2, and amplifies the sound emanating from your speaker by redirecting it, or “bending” it back to.

It’s a smart-looking, light-weight device that snugly attaches along your iDevice by way of plastic arms that hold onto your unit. It requires no power to use and is sturdy and looks pretty slick. It comes in a variety of colors for you to choose from for those of you who (like me) are into mixing and matching accessory colors to your device and/or case.

Features and Recommendations
The SoundBender comes with arms that have magnetic clips for a more secure hold, as well as arms that come with no magnets included. I’ve tried both versions, and both not only held steadfastly, there was no reduction in the sound quality.

I was able to experiment using a couple of cases, namely the Yaboo leather case and the Saddleback Leather Case. Yaboo has pinholes in the speaker area of its cases. The SoundBender would not fit over the casing and I would have to remove the case in order to use the device. Ironically, even though the Saddleback leather case is much thicker than the Yaboo, I was able to attach the SoundBender without any problems. This is because the Saddleback case has a cut-out over the speaker area allowing users to insert the SoundBender in the available opening.

Perhaps future versions of SoundBender could include an adjustable arm that expands or contracts and locks into place, in order to meet the varying sizes of the myriad cases on the market. This would definitely meet the demands of more people with cases, broadening the target SoundBender audience. However, in its current form, it does a great job of improving the overall listening experience.

Conclusion
Simply Amazinc has produced an essential, must-have accessory that is sure to please everyone who has ever wished that the sounds coming from the back of their iPad 2 could be enhanced and amplified. With the SoundBender, the nuanced sounds from your games or songs you may have missed because of the position of the speaker, or you simply didn’t have your headphones with you, can now be better heard with a compact and sleek, power-free device that bends the sound back to you, for a more enriching listening experience. The SoundBender is innovative, intuitive and flat-out impressive!
Rating (1-10): 10
What I Enjoyed: Compact and portable, yet powerful and practical.
What Could Be Better: The accessory doesn’t fit over some cases
Price: $15 base price with more options to show your support. Please see the website for more pricing details.
For more information and to contribute to this project, visit the Simply Amazinc Kickstarter project website.
Path:

The other week, we got question about a new mobile app that had been released:

In a nutshell, he describes it as a web-based app, not one that goes on [iTunes App Store] or Android Market [now named Google Play Market]. I’m not familiar with this, how it works, what are the advantages, and more importantly how average mobile phone users would cope with buying and installing something that is not on an app store?

The line of questioning isn’t surprising given the context and some of the quirks that are involved with dealing with apps outside of the context of an “app store.” I unpacked this for that person, and wanted to also share that here as some context to help some of you out whom are looking at creating a mobile app, and are sitting on the fence about whether you need to write one that appears in an app store, or go the approach of a website that acts like an app.

Web Apps Versus Regular Apps
Web-based apps are dependent on the capabilities of the web browser, and utilize a programming methodology called AJAX which allows for sections of the screen to update without needing to refresh the entire page. Web apps geared towards mobile, at least in terms of more recently (I’ll ignore WAP and Flash for now), push that methodology a bit by using JavaScript libraries to activate device and platform specific features. Libraries such as PhoneGap, jQuery/jQuery Mobile, Sproutcore, and others basically make it easier to turn any webpage into an app suitable for some mobile devices given some work (there are also content management systems that assist in this process).

It can be assumed that regular (native) apps don’t need a web connection, but that is not always the case (though there is a prevailing opinion that if the app requires a data connection to simply be used, then should it have been made an app at all). Web apps traditionally start from the web browser on the mobile device, though some might allow a stub to be pinned to your homescreen to go into it faster. Regular (native) apps are also more likely to have richer interactions, graphics, or audio since it would not rely on the stability of a data connection to serve assets needed for it to work.

Discovering the App
The main issue with any app is being able to find it when you are looking for it. With the rise of smartphone-centric app stores (iTunes App Store in 2007 and those which came after), you’ve basically got a situation where if you do one of these web apps, that you have to create a “wrapper” for it, created using the native coding language of that platform, so that you can add the necessary information (metadata, etc.) for it to be hosted in an app store.

That tends to be more expensive, and so the route for many mobile web apps is to use the app to replace the literal mobile website, in this way the URL, any existing SEO, etc., and casual linking, allows the visitor who is coming from their mobile device to kind of stumble into that mobile web app. Its a decent philosophy, however it can be difficult to get people to wrap their heads around the fact that what’s in your browser can also be an app (Google, Financial Times, and even a beta web app at MMM push this).

One of the things that some mobile app content management systems do is in addition to helping you build the website, you pay an additional fee to have that website published as an app in one or more app stores. This fee is because some app stores require the developer/content producer to pay to be included in their listings, and is usually a yearly cost. The good thing is that these content mangement systems tell you exactly what you need (in terms of description of your app and any graphics) in order for it to appear in those app stores in the best light.

Advantages/Disadvantages
The primary advantage for web/mobile web apps is that you are outside of the rules and conditions of app store philosophies. In this age where some are getting acquainted with limited/restricted communications, its a smart approach for faith-based groups who are in regions, serving regions, or have a potential future implication of being too far from the policies of app stores and/or regions to have a presence that might be hosted locally in additional to international-straddling methods like an app store. Other advantages include the ability to push out updates on your own schedule, more granular analytics (many folks are using Google Analytics, which are very good for this kind of work), and no need to install anything for the user (the just need to save the bookmark or “pin” the bookmark to their device’s homescreen).

Disadvantages, therefore, are pretty easy to come to light.

1: Creating a mobile web app means that you either aim for the better mobile browsers (as [redacted] did), or take the time to code for all of the browsers specific to the audience and people whom would be utilizing this application. That’s not just specialized knowledge, but also coding savy of a unique kind (recently, a Wallmart web developer spoke to this). Mobile web apps will work differently across devices because of what capabilities the browsers have. Android, Windows Mobile (not Phone), and Symbian are very guilty of this as their browser implementations vary widely. There are some programming helps here, but these are new to the scene and aren’t as widely implemented as these devices have been in service.

2: Discovering the app is difficult without some suitable marketing behind it.

3: Web/Mobile web apps require connectivity for some/most of their functionality. Very few web apps are utilizing the HTML5 feature which allows 10-50MB of browser cache to be used to “store” the app (and only a portion of the latest smartphones are able to use this feature. If [redacted] is doing this, good for them. If not, then folks would essentially be reloading the app (therefore using whatever data services they have or don’t have) each time, at the cost to the user, apart from any cost to access that app/site.

Buying/Installing and Concerns for the Average User
Like I mentioned above, the average user will only know that its a web app versus a website when they are notified that it is such. Many times, this is done with a tool-tip bubble when you get to the page (there are a number of WordPress theme which do this), or maybe some kind of notification on the screen in a high-visibility area. If the URL/address bar goes away and it goes full-screen, that’s another way to know that you are in the web app versus website territory. If there is no notiication, you are relying on the user knowing that they can do this – which isn’t necessarly the best philosophy.

There’s nothing to install. At least, there shouldn’t be. If you need a plugin to use a mobile web app, then its being done wrong.

Purchasing would be akin to signing up for a subscription to a secure area of a website. Here, the developer would have to navigate SSL certificates, HTML5 local storage, and use by going directly into the web app, versus coming in through some kind of sign-in screen. The Kindle Cloud Reader is a good example here as its essentially a self-contained website, but if the session cookie has expired, or you have made a purchase that’s yet to be reflected in Cloud Reader, you’ll get a screen asking you to reauthinicate/login again, and then the new content downloads and is available to that mobile device. Key to this is what Amazon does in terms of asking you to register your device with Kindle. Even with the Cloud Reader, there’s tracking of how and what device you use to access the service so that you get the experience best tailored to your device’s abilities.

Lastly, a person will eventually ask if this is something that’s worth paying to get behind a paywall, or is it easier to compile and use a “good enough” application, which might go out to the web a bit less often. Native apps perform faster, and generally are easier to find because they are in app stores. If the group making the web app doesn’t have heavy brand recognition, they just won’t be found. [redacted] would need to partner with groups outside of its usual/known audience or embark on a marketing program that gets them out there a bit more.

Additional Points
When you are making that decision whether to have a mobile website or a mobile app, these are some of the things you’d want to have in mind. For further strategies on this topic, please see the following articles and resources:

• Listing of Mobile App and Mobile Web App Services
• Should Our Church Have a Mobile App or Mobile Website
• How to Build An App for Your Ministry
• An App Is Not A Strategy

Do you have anything additonal to add to what we’ve stated here. We’ve redacted the name of the company that was being referred to here so as to protect the integrity of that conversation. That said, this was forwarded to them so that they could adjust their mobile website and marketing approach to be more clearer towards what the destination does versus the expectation of those coming to it.

Last week, we were contacted by Aaron Frey, who has begin a Kickstarter project called PearlVault asking to help get the word out about this project. We’ve not talked about some of the struggles with notes and electronic Bibles in a long time (something from 2008, and another something from 2006), and so getting this note about PearlVault reopens that conversation alongside the other collaborative features many have asked for in the Bible software domain.

About PearlVault
From the Kickstarter page:

…This project will create a web portal where you can take your Bible study notes so that they are searchable, taggable and indexed according to Bible references. It will also allow you to attach notes to words from a particular Bible translation–or even words from the original Greek or Hebrew. It will be optimized for the easy discovery of past notes whenever you study that same passage/word/topic again. It will also be optimized for use on mobile devices so that, even when you are away from your desktop, you are never away from your Bible notes. And PearlVault, should this project succeed, will be available for the rest of your life, independent of whatever study environment you use otherwise.

Essentially, your Bible reader of choice will utilize PearlVault as the syncing-linchpin for your notes content between Bible apps. Not a bad idea, and definitely down the road towards how we’ve supported similar-featured projects in the past in regards to being able to have more liberty with the content you create or own.

[Click here if unable to see the video embedded above]

The Challenge for PearlVault
The challenge for PearlVault is getting enough buy-in and interest from Bible publishers and software companies to support this effort. Hence, the Kickstarter project. Your notes would be stored outside of the application, so that in the case you’d decide to move to another Bible software suite, that you’d not lose the content you’ve already created. As it stands right now, of the Bible software programs which have a notes functionality, many times this is a feature within the application and you usually need an additional piece of software (or in some cases a full PC) to take the notes from the application and put it into a more generic format.

The other challenge actually comes from the users of Bible software. Much like with versions of the Bible, software can become an issue of comfort and attachment. And unless circumstances dictate otherwise, many people will stick with the same Bible software family for many years. Now, when they do change, there’s some general flow towards how they evolve with Bible software:

• Many start with a free, gifted, or low-cost package; as they become more skilled in using the software, they may opt for the paid content or a paid Bible app with a similar user interface (UI);
• Some start with a recommendation of personable apps such as Olive Tree, Pocket Bible, YouVersion, Logos, etc.; sometimes with the encouragement to try a few of these before settling on one; in the meantime, notes and other content is being generated that won’t transfer to the app they settle to
• The last step forks one of two ways: either the person is such the student of the text (w/pastorial responsibility) that Logos and their deep library is the only option, or they are a mild-academic in terms of the text, looking to some of the lighter Logos packages, or the wares of Olive Tree, Accordance, or eSword (depending on content needs); the latter group is likely to use more than one Bible software package

Having said this, the challenge is actually quite apparent. Even if a person moves up and through several leagues of Bible software, they will have some (not major) difficulity in keeping their notes attached (programatically) to the text. Now, do know that we are talking about a specific set of Bible software users here, its not the normal course for non-pastor/teacher types to go through several iterations of software – folks just aren’t that patient. Those who are, and who have a genuine joy for searching the Scriptures so that this issue of notes between apps comes into play, just have different needs that’s not been met as of yet which PearlVault seeks to do.

More Information, Supporting PearlVault
PearlVault is using Kickstarter in order to raise the funds needed to support the building and maintaining of the service which will be hosting these linked notes. It is also in place to log the interest of people for such functionality. By placing your donation into the project, you help Frey’s discussion with Bible publishers and software developers who sometimes don’t want to look outside of their products, but do know that the user at times will.

Some additional information about PearVault and Aaron Frey’s motivations for the project have been detailed in an interview over at Christiandroid. Definitely check that out as it goes into a bit more than the Kickstarter page towards the project’s vision and aims.

And finally, support Aaron. Having been on the side of trying to just make Bibles available between platforms, I admire and affirm Aaron Frey’s project and what it aims to do for everyone who gets value out of storing, rereading, and sharing Biblical notes.

One of the reasons that I like Tomi Ahonen is that he is full of examples and proofs for the successes of mobile, especially on the business side of things. And as many of you know from theological and sociological studies, there’s little difference between some of what works in the realm of religion/faith and what works in business. That’s one of the reasons that I’ve encouraged many who have asked about tracking their effectiveness in mobile campaigns to make sure that you are reading the older materials put out by Tomi. Books such as Pearls Volume 1 go into colorful detail about successful mobile marketing and advertising engagements that have not only added to the pockets, but have also changed the behaviors of the people using the services/products.

In a recent post at Communities Dominate Brands, Tomi again goes the route of highlighting some successful mobile marketing/advertising campaigns (quite a bit more updated than what’s in Pearls), and talks some about why these were sucessful. Yes, you do have to understand the context of the regions some of these were deployed in – its not like if it worked there, its going too work here. However, there are some elements of each that if you pay attention to the stories, you’ll uncover the pearls which could lead to a more successful implementation of your mobile ministry efforts.

Here are the subtopics covered in that article:

• Building an Army of Fanatics (you should also reference Johnathan MacDonald for this)
• Measuring/Increasing Click-Thru Rates (every flyer/announcement needs this)
• Measuring/Increasing Response Rates (every event promoter wants this)
• Redemption Rates/Conversion Rates (I’ve been told this is the key metric for most marketing campagns)
• Wanting More Ads
• Building/Implementing Cross-Media Experiences with Mobile

Its a high-level look at what has worked and why they worked. However, I would very much recommend that you take a look at Tomi’s previously published books (all of the volumes of Pearls, and the latest Mobile Almanac) in order to get these stories and more in some more depth of details.

We’ve talked about mobile markeitng in previous articles as well:

• 2011 Mobile Marketing Awards Report
• An App Is Not A Strategy
• Differences Between Internet Ministry and Mobile Ministry
• Parallels to News and Retail
• Experiments and Successes with Mobile and Web
• Marketing and Mobile Apps in the Faith-Based Sector

One More Thing…
Its Sunday, and many folks are being broadcast several types of messages from their churches and local communities. In a respect, this topic fits today quite well. So much so that in the article at Communities Dominate Brands, Tomi states something that I too agree with which should also come across the brow today:

…If you are in advertising, you are probably doing something in mobile already and are considering how to expand. I am here to tell you, that if you don’t achieve these kinds of levels of success, you are not doing it right. You CANNOT try to copy the legacy media. You HAVE to learn that mobile has 9 unique abilities, and using those unique abilities, you can create SUPERIOR advertising on mobile, better than anything on any other media. If your mobile ads deliver response rates in the single digits, you are doing it wrong. Fire your agency, hire some competence to teach your team. Throw the current concepts into the waste basket and start again. Read the big names in our industry, books by Kim Dushinski and Chetan Sharma. Hire the right people to advise you like Jonathan MacDonald and Alan Moore (and me haha). Use agencies that have the competence and win the awards and deliver that kind of performance as I outline. It may be global giants like Ogilvy or specialist agencies like R/GA or D2C or Naked etc. But don’t accept mediocre performance simply because it outperforms your internet advertising…

There’s nothing about mobile that should be abused similar to how some have done email and Internet marketing/outreach. You don’t game your websites for SEO, you don’t purchase email lists, you don’t have unreachable, unrealistic goals. Or, to say it a bit more direcly – Mobile ministry isn’t equal to Internet Ministry. There is nothing about mobile so complicated that you can’t take the time to do things sensably, and in a manner which respects the capabilities of the people usings the devices and services. Offer them an experience they’d not considered before. Don’t just copy for the sake of “oh, it worked there.” You have the creative genius of God running through you, make Him your standard and build engaging experiences from there.

Some weeks ago, we talked about a specific case of using several applications across one’s mobile and tablet to do bible studies. The response from that article has been quiet, but there has been something quite consistently stated: the amount of inking, drawing, and pictures was a bit overwhelming. So, how about we scale things down a bit to just using your tablet (iPad, Nook, Kindle Fire, etc) for studies.

[click for larger view]

The Setup

• Safari Mobile Web Browser
• Penultimate
• Evernote
• Dropbox

We are keeping things simple here with the use of the built-web browser, Penultimate to collect and organize our content, and then Evernote and Dropbox for the purposes of archiving and sharing (you only need one of these, but am including both as Penultimate works seamlessly with both).

The Study: John 8:1-11
Many of us might be familiar with this section of the Bible. Here, a woman is brought before Jesus by scribes and Pharasees and she is charged with adultery. This was one of those studies where we were given the text before the meeting, and then had to come to the study with items to contribute. I decided to collect my thoughts within Penultimate, and then again use the app during the study to capture additional thoughts.

Before the study, I read the text and started in Penultimate with some questions that came to mind about aspects of the section of text: location, timing, what the Temple looked like, etc. After getting a few of these, I began just by using a simple search to look them up, and then started collecting facts and images from image searches, Wikipedia, and other places.

Then in Penultimate, I just went at it. What I liked here is that my notes very quickly started looking like something in a composition book, but with better links to images and data. What’s missing from Penultimate is some kind of screen that keeps track of the items that you grab from websites (like of like an automated biblography).

During the study, I went back to the document that I started, and just added additional pages to correspond to the questions being asked. No styli, no keyboard. Just grabbing snippets of images and writing as I see fit.

The end product looked like this PDF. I exported the Penultimate file into Dropbox, and it created this PDF. I also did an export into Evernote which gives me the opportunity to view this notebook on my mobile or anywhere else that Penultimate doesn’t exist (aka, anything not named iPad).

All in all, this has become a pretty neat workflow and exercise. Its only one of a few ways that you can use your tablet for Bible studies. Of note, the ability to mashup content within your notes is something you should take advantage of, or encourage those you teach to take advantage of. If you can do somethingl ike provide them with an outline to start with, and then let them cut/create as they go, you’ve got the starts of building understanding (Proverbs 4:7) with the text – note just memorization and rote learning.

Could this work for you? Or, do you have your own workflow for how you use a tablet with Bible studies? Chime in the comments and share.

A few weeks ago, I was in Philly welcoming my new niece into the world. While there, I also got a chance to connect with a good brother in the faith, Jaime Centeno, pastor of the Philly plant for In the Light Ministries. When he and I connect, it is always a good chance to hear and see what new has been happening with that part of the Body, and how they are making roads into life and community transformations by using the Gospel and plenty of computer/multimedia tech approaches.

Here is a small video (2:30) taken during that last visit after helping the, setup a few small pieces to their in-progress video room:

What I like best about this is how random the video was (mobile is good for that), and then the ability to see a young woman leading the charge in making this happen. Nina is rare in this respect, and what she is learning while Jamie and In the Light move forward, is making possible some neat explorations and discussions around the effect of the Gospel within urban environments.