Last week, we spent some time with Renew Outreach talking about missions in remote areas, literacy, and how mobile is making its way into these very unlikely environments profitably for the Gospel (we’ve got a bit about those folks coming). One of the groups tossed out during one of several conversations was story4all, a podcast-based Christian media group which uses audio streams in the heart/native language of those being preached, spoken to.

A bit more about them from their website:

…We believe deeply that the Message Jesus delivered was not only brought by Him “wearing our skin” (becoming like us and embodying the Message), but it came in a style best understood by His audience, and in a language of the heart.

It has been estimated that only 8% of people living in Israel during Jesus’ time on earth were literate. However, He came and taught everyone (literate Pharisees, etc., as well as the mostly non-literate populace) through the medium of stories. Mark chapter 4 says “He was never without a story when He spoke”. Jesus saw fit to deliver truths to the literate and non-literate alike through the medium of stories. He demonstrated through this that to be effective and to promote recall in the minds of those who hear, most of our communication should be housed in stories.

Ironically, 90% of all Christian ministry today occurs through literate communication styles…

For those of you who’s mobile and ministry pursuits need to start with audio stories (not visual stories), story4all seems like a great place for connection and content. Check out their website and subscribe to their podcast RSS, iTunes). You might find that the heart language they speak, also ressonates with the faith that you aim to share with others.

A few articles ago, we went a bit on a extended talk about the All Books Bible Reader that I’m developing for personal use. After talking through the technical features and goals, we wrapped up with a statement talking about clarifying the goals and features for your mobile(-first) endeavors, and being mindful of the specific UX needs mobile presents:

Mobile-Friendly and Personalization As Core to User Experience
The takeaway from this project is that there have been several methods to engaging Bible/document reading, social/offline networking, funddraising, and other initiatives in mobile ministry. However, even if you nail the features, at some point in the maturing of that person using the service or the company offering it, doing something that fits the mobile context and that’s personalized will come forth. It might not be the aims of your projects initially, but do know that eventually, they all point to these goals needing to be met.

With that starting point, we want to highlight a bit more about Mobile (UX) Standards and in referencing that All Books Project, and some of the items to keep in mind whiile moving forward in your mobile initiatives this year and beyond.

Mobile UX Standards
It is assumed that the idea of what makes for a great mobile user experience is pretty easy – just grab yourself an Apple iPhone and use it for a week or two, then switch to another platform for the same amount of time and note how often you frown, toss the device, or find yourself limited in some fashion. And while we can agree that Apple’s iOS platform does make for some suitable claims towards what makes a good mobile experience (consistency, quality, variety of applications, etc.), its not the only mobile experience, nor does it answer every question anyone developing, selling, or using mobility will ask towards.

Over at UX Mag, an excellent article talking about mobile standards beyond the styleguides, frameworks, and guidelines that would usually reference as we develop apps makes an excellent point:

…Apple, Android, and Blackberry all do a great job of sharing standards with their developer communities. They share detailed guidelines on standard UI elements, the associated terminology, and their behaviors, and give usage examples for the UI. However, what they don’t do is string them all together into patterns.

• What happens after you click this button?
• How should these messages change in context of the task?
• If you’re opening a document online, should it open in a new window or in the current window?
• When and where do error messages appear in a form?
• Is that different or the same in a wizard or series of forms?

These are the questions that designers and developers spend most of their time toiling over—the little things that pull UI elements together into a full interaction. And these are also the questions that the OS standards do not cover. This is a key gap in standards for designers and developers that can be filled by a new custom set of guidelines, which further save money and time in development efforts and add value to the existing, basic OS standards.

*List formattting added

Beyond simply saying “we want to go mobile” or “let’s use this or that to go mobile,” you really have to ask core questions about the interaction and steer adamantly towards those goals. What happens when you don’t steer specifically towards the goal, understanding these kinds of questions throughout, is that you end up with a glut of features, conflicting brand messages, dis-engaged users, and missed opportunities to deliever the depth of the Gospel that you/your group intends that application or service to portray.

Start With A Picture, Ask Until the Ink Dries
With the All Books Project, I started with an idea in my head (more efficient Bible reading on my personal mobile device that wasn’t limited to closed-licensed texts), and started scraping together what was needed and what wasn’t in order to make that happen. I boiled things down to two features: reading and searching. And then I took to one of my favorite apps on my iPad (Tactilis) to sketch some reasonable ideas towards how I would get there.

This UX flow document is my gage of whether I’m meeting my goals. If I am, then the lines here continue to make sense. If not, then I go back to this document towards what I (originally or later modified) thought and ask whether my thinking should continue down the path I’m or, or get back on course to what was drawn.

One of the pieces of interaction that I’m aiming for with All Books is a sliding popup for when I click on those verses with footnotes. The feature is harder to implement than its drawn. But, because I’m clear towards what I want to do when the popup is envoked, how its interacted with, and how it is dismissed, I can keep my programming focused and timelines (generally) well kept.

A Good Mobile UX Is Also Your Feedback Loop’s Process
In designing an effective mobile user experience (UX), you also need to take into account the development/design of your support infrastructure. As we talked about once before when developing mobile web apps, you need to have in place the resources not just to build the app, but to support, maintain, and maybe even update it.

Build, Get It Out There
After I was able to figure out my issue relating to displaying content within All Books, I needed to start using it. It didn’t matter that there was (noted) performance issues or the inability to see the footnotes as I’d like. Getting it into my normal use allows me to catch things that I’d not considered in my initial development and design, and then adjust on the fly without effecting other pieces of the project. For example, I realized that for all the work I did with makng this a spatially-orienting design, I still felt lost when navigating. The insertion of colored indicators on the section that I was within helped this considerably, and it was a few lines of code to add to do this (1 CSS class and 1 JS statement).

With that: do you have your mobile UX resolution refined now. Its the middle of January, don’t let too much longer go by.

Last month, we had a post from LaRosa Johnson talking about his new Asus Transformer Android tablet computer and how he planned to use it work and Biblical studies. Of the latter, he was doing something pretty neat in that he would use the tablet to remotely log into his laptop to be able to use the desktop Bible software packages that he has there. We’ve found another example of this over at Biblical Studies and Technological Tools where instead of a tablet, we’ve got an Android smartphone, and the software being used is SplashTop Remote Desktop. Here’s a snippet of that experience:

In the past I have used Logmein for remote access to the various family computers I maintain. Even the basic free account lets me take over a computer and run programs on it. It works great and is secure. I will continue to use it for such maintenance tasks. Note that this can work the other way around, and what a program like this allows me to do is run programs that are on my home system from any other computer. As long as I have my home system on and Logmein enabled, I can remotely connect to my home system and use my installed programs like BibleWorks or Logos. I’ve also used it to grab files I’ve forgotten on my home computer when I’m at school. (I now use SugarSync to keep my systems all in sync via the cloud. It’s a wonderful thing.) It’s a little slow to use Logmein this way, but it works. What this also means is that I can use the web browser on my smartphone and see BibleWorks on my phone. I say “see,” because without the use of a mouse on my phone, I really can’t do too much. Logmein does have an Android app ($29), but I just don’t use it that much, especially on my phone, to buy it.

Read the rest of BibleWorks and Logos on Android (sort of…) at Biblical Studies and Technological Tools.

Now, this sounds like something that would be only useful in areas where wireless bandwidth is accessible and there’s some technological savy on the part of the person putting this together. But, I can’t help thinking that at some level, it would make a lot of sense to see something like Bibleworks, Logos, etc. offered in a “server package” where you purchase “seats” and those authenticate mobile devices are able to use it. This would be no different than what we see with CRM, task management, Intranet, and office productivity suites (Salesforce, Basecamp, SharePoint, and Google Apps to name a few).

A difference in the application here though would need to be that Bible software suites doing this would want to explore being usable in different streams. For example, something like having the BibleWorks install and UI sitting on a Seagate GoFlex Satellite, with anyone accessing that hard drive/access point being able to “see/read” BibleWorks on their device, but it is being served from that single point. There’d also be something like Logos’ Biblia that could be explored where a license for an organization could make available to authenticated seats some measure of the Logos library. Or, finally we could see the BibleWorks/Olive Tree/Logos/etc. move to a model of use where instead of purchasing and downloading a product, that people and organizations purchase access to a virtual desktop of sorts which would allow them (a) access to the library and (b) multiple devices which can access it per use account. Now that I’m thinking about it, it would be really neat if I could recreate the mobile web server and then host the bible project I’m working on from it… uhmmm

In whatever case, its pretty neat to see these kinds of access choices taken when it comes to Bible software. We shouldn’t limit mobile just to “what’s designed for the small screen” when its clearly possible for that small screen to access a bit more. What is worth being explored though is how we can better enable mobile to be a key to a content library, whether or not those with the devices have the financial means to access the content or not.

A few years ago, I was in San Diego for a conference and entered into a conversation with a gentleman who wanted to know more about MMM. Of the questions that he asked, one of them that was one part shocking, but another part (quickly) introspective was whether MMM also serves the Jewish community who would like to also participate in this conversation about faith and mobile devices? Don’t get me wrong, I know completly the (American Protestant) Christian slant to things here, but it wasn’t clear until then if such a perspective was a determent or a benefit towards things. After that conversation, I grappled with the implications of my answer to him (we aren’t a respecter of religions, but are careful in every approach taken), and what that should mean going forward. This past November/December, that context came up again – but in the guise of an application (and its resulting conversations) and an experiment.

An Application and A Conversation
I’m not sure exactly how I stumbled upon it, but there was a conversation about the Mishkan T’filah iPad app that had been developed and released, and I found myself studying the conversation around it.

From the CCAR website:

Mishkan T’filah is the siddur used by congregations throughout the world…

Like the print version of Mishkan T’filah, the prayers in iT’filah are fully transliterated, and are accompanied by many inspiring readings and commentary. Move between prayers and explore additional content with the swipe of a finger. Tap to hear many of the prayers chanted or read aloud.

This first version of iT’filah contains the Erev Shabbat (Friday Night) Service, with accompanying page numbers corresponding to the print editions of Mishkan T’filah. Future releases will include even more content, such as Shabbat (Saturday) Morning and home blessings, and will be also be available on the iPhone and iPod.

The iT’filah (The Mishkan T’filah App) can be downloaded from the iTunes store.

But, it was the conversation around that app – literally its implications – that got me stuck on this topic again. At Frume Sarah’s website probably the best stream of conversations on the iT’filah and how ebooks challenge traditional thoughts about the Sabbath. Here’s a snippet of some of the opinions being grappled with (comment by EdibleTorah):

I find myself standing with you and against you.

As an IT professional (ie: computer geek), I think anything that CAN be an app SHOULD be an app. I like having my siddur on my droid phone – three different ones, in fact. I love all the various Jewish tools my technology makes possible, from the “which way is Jerusalem” compass to the “zman minder” popup that let’s me know when i’m 30 minutes away from the daily davening (praying) deadline.

And as an orthodox Jew, it all gets shut off on Shabbat. Every last bit, byte, checkin, update and tweet. Which is fine. One day out of 7, I can live without it, I can hug my hardcover Artscroll to my chest as I pray, and enjoy the pure analog experience of it all.

*IF* your one day (or your main day, or the day you are sure you can make time) to pray is Shabbat, then I can see where there would be cognitive dissonance.

But if not, then I think there is room for (and benefit to) both.

Clearly, this is no different than what we’ve been conversing about for several years now. With the change of media to connected, electronic streams, it does challenge traditional thoughts about what’s beneficial and what remains holy (yes, I know that Christians can step in here with the “Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” verse, but I’d rather not get confrontational right now – merely just highlighting the conversation streams we share).

In the meantime, we have added the iT’filah app to our (renamed) Bibles and Religious Apps for Mobile page. There’s more that should be highlighted there that would be of value to all. Feel free to submit your app to us if you would like it noted on that page.

An AR Experiment

The second poke to this stream came as I was reading the website of a recent contributor to the Carnival of the Mobilists, Mobile in DC. He simply did a quick application using an augmented reality API made available by Qualcomm to .

Its just an experiment, but it does revisit the classic discussion of icons and sacraments. If someone can utilize a mobile to transform a static space into something of a holy altar (or altar of remembrance), then does the personal interpretation of faith take on a different, heavier weight than that of the community-hewn vision of faith? If, a person is able to program (build) their temple, does the worship space, or even the prayer closet, take on a a looser definition? Or, does its effectiveness towards drawing one closer to the goals of that faith increase/diminish?

The Relevance of These Viewpoints
Why is this signifiant? Well, look at both of the contexts noted in this piece. You have the first where the intrusion of digital literature changes – or at the very least challenges – the behaviors of faith curated by time and tradition. And then you have the second which observes the memorial space which, but does so through the lens of virtual reality, not a physical icon. Unlike our discussion earlier about the (possible) headless faith of file sharing, we have here a challenge to a faith’s confidence to remain holy while embracing new behaviors and perceptions.

We can’t make the statement that the implications of digital artifacts (web, mobile, AR, etc.) are to be ignored. But, perhaps we might need to do a better job of sharing the insights of our conversations towards figuring out what this is all about. To some extent, a few of us are grafted into the same tree of faith, therefore what happens to one branch has an effect on the entire tree.

I’ve not been asleep yet tonite. Its just after 4am when I’m writing this. I’m sort of not tired. Been spending the past days with Renew Outreach learning about how they enable missionaries to go to some of the most remote parts of the earth with media such as The Jesus Film. I found out about these folks from W Stephen Keel. Stephen, the founder and literal engine behind Kiosk Evangelism, made it a point not long after moving into his home to have me connect with Renew Outreach. I’m here, on their grounds, getting no sleep after an exhausing day connecting moblile minsitry to their goals and operations, because of Stephen.

About 3 hours ago, I received an email from Stephen that the lung that he received via transplant just about a week ago is being rejected by his body. In the email, he spoke of accepting Christ and the connections to each of his friends (copied on that email) that accepting Christ has afforded him.

I don’t know if he’s still awake.

I hope he is enough to read or hear this being read to him. There’s been a boatload of lessons that Stephen, through Kiosk Evangelism, his marriage, and his faith, I’ve learned over the past year.

Stephen connected with MMM and myself through the Visual Story Network and the mobile media minsitry working group. During a call, we realized that we were only a few hours from one another, and made plans to connect. He visited me in the summer – and using what little funds I had left at the time, I visited him in the fall. That visit turned into an invitation to stay at his home, work on the Kiosk Evangelism Project, and learn from him, his wife and family, and their connections as to how this life is lived best by accepting the connections that Christ leads us towards by faith and faith in Him alone.

Stephen isn’t the easiest person to work with, he is one of the most beneficial people to work with. His vision and passion towards reaching those goals God puts in him is incredible. With the Kiosk Evangelism Project, we went back and forth on everything from content acquisition strategies, to which mobile phones to select to target, to the design of his website, to tracking progress on the project. We were two bulls yolked together, and for the most part we had no head-butting moments. We had a few, and they were powerful. And I was always compelled to come back and just finish the work. We were connected in Christ for this endeavor, and we both knew that if we couldn’t work together for the time God gave us, then we’d miss a considerable opportunity to empower a spreading of the Gospel that’s not been seen before.

Faith and connections are powerful lessons. I learned from Stephen and his wife about the benefit of having support, having a team. There are times to be bold (speaking) and bolder (praying). There are moments when he was so honest about his physical state that I wondered where his faith went, only to see the level of oxygen increase such that it was like he really was breathing and therefore living on faith alone. The man had a very large vision. Kiosk evangelism, mobile evangelists, SD card evangelism… these were pieces of that connection he kept seeing.

His passion and faith were such that he provoked several ministries to work with him and one another for the cause of the Gospel. And he pissed off a few folks because that passion and faith compelled him to push and want to move faster than items could get done. When we finally got to an accessible project, that passion and faith turned into a diligence to the task that made me smile. I didn’t get to see my father in those moments so often, and so to see Stephen putting his hands to the digital ground taught me a ton. I am up working on that All Books Project of mine in part for that reason (and I can’t sleep).

I’m rambling… this is longer than it needs to be. I’ll end this with something he said in that last email, which I think will be another one of those quotables that finds itself embedded within MMM’s DNA:

A life of anonymous giving is the highest form of living

There were many moments in his life where provision came out of no where, and he and his family could only attribute it to God. He took the tasks of the Kiosk Evangelism Project in the same light. It wasn’t about getting his name out there, nor making him famous in the minds of ministries who could have definitely used his wisdom and experience. It was only about getting Jesus into the hearts and minds of people who themselves would only have God to thank for the faithfulness of someone they never met.

I receive some of the reports from the field from the Kiosk Evangelism Project’s launch in India. The men of peace who heard messages from Stephen, and later received teachings and trainings over Skype from him on how to share the Gospel on mobile phones write some impressive reports on what’s happeing there. I’ll have time to edit these soon to get them up here. Because of Stephen, the legacy of the faithfulness of God will be heard by people to whom the ubuquity of mobile phones has reached.

I’m not sure that he’s awake to read this. I’ll miss him. Our chats, and I’d hoped for another coffee shop run or moment shooting hoops. But, of that which of his I can take, its that a lot of what we do in this space of mobile minsitry might never get accolades from man, but it will add to the faith and connection we have with God. That’s a kind of legacy that’s worth leaving no matter how much breath one has left. He praised the Lord with his… I’m honored to have served beside such a man.

View more information about the Kiosk Evangelism Project. As we get clear details towards this project’s continuance, we’ll post that here.

Not sure when the idea hit (I’d need to look back at notes and such). But, at one point during 2011, during one of the many calls had with several members of the Mobile Ministry Forum (MMF), I got the idea to just make a small website that had essentially all of the information points that the MMF aims for, but also serves as an example of a non-app approach to being an information point. The resulting actvity is simply named MobMin.Info (http://mobmin.info).

A Portal and A Reference
MobMin.Info is simply a portal page pointing to much of the resources and research that’s been done to date in the area of mobile ministry.

The URL was grabbed as a result of conversations around the #mobmin Twitter search term and the search tendencies of those looking for information about mobile ministry.

Structure
MobMin.Info is a single-page website (11K) site broken into separate sections:

• Websites
• Case Studies/Research
• Bible Apps
• Dev & Services
• Articles, News, and Discussions
• About the Mobile Ministry Forum

Each section simply links to the content from sites already involved in the Mobile Ministry Forum.

It is designed using HTML5 (Modernizr template) along with jQuery. It was completely developed on an iPad using Textastic.

Why Is This Relevant
One of the issues that some have had with the MMF is that it is quite difficult to find what information is out there for mobile ministry. There’s been a good bit published, and much of it is and isn’t quite in a format that some have needed for it to be in order for it to be actionable. A single destination that points to clearly defined resources is much more actionable.

The other reason for doing this is that Mobile Ministry Magazine is in dire need of a redesign itself. In the process of cleaning up information structures on the backend for an eventual redesign, it just made sense to take some of what we’d done so far and make that available, along with others in the mobile ministry space who have been steadily putting out content and resources. Given that our brand is quite strong, and the Mobile Ministry Forum is so closely aligned in both brand activity and name, it made sense to just go ahead and make this. The redesign for this site will follow a format more along the lines of existing content and the (hopefully this year) pending release of a mobile ministry methodology.

Sharing, Feedback, Future Directions
Ideally, MobMin.Info would be what you’d put into your mobile device’s browser and leave it there as a favorite/bookmark. Anything that’s happening in this mobile ministry space, that’s being referenced in this space, should be accessible from this URL. So, use it as a primary link or just as the one you have to share what happens in mobile ministry if someone where asking you what this is all about.

Your feedback is welcome, but aside from adding additional content streams from MMF members, there’s not too much that’s going to happen to this design (for example, its not getting published in an app store, its not getting a PC or tablet-optimized view, etc.). Not that your feedback isn’t worth it, but this is something that would be best served if MobMin.Info were sitting outside of the brand/authority of Mobile Ministry Magazine. Feel free to leave your comment here, or to post it at the Mobile Ministry Forum discussion board.

Future directions:

• Handover of the MobMin.Info site and domain to the MMF
• Possible change of this into a WordPress (or other CMS) template
• Added offline capacity (its almost there, its made using HTML5)

Ok folks, so no excuses for not having something in your head regarding how to find information about mobile ministry. Add MobMin.Info to your (portable) resources.

Last fall, I was (electronically) introduced to a brother from the company Mobile Cause. One of the thoughts sparked from conversing with him and seeing what Mobile Cause offers is if there is a means to take that idea of SMS donations and give to someone directly, the service providers (carrier, financial institutions, and service faciliator) essentially falling into the background so that its just a matter of “hear the need, text the gift,” then it might be possible for mobile giving to be the paradigm shift its being aimed towards. Certianly, we know from other endeavors with mobile and finances that making the transaction valuable, relevant and seamless does provoke sustainable behavioral shifts.

I thought for a bit about it, but due to the holiday and other endeavors, its kind of fallen off the radar a bit. Well, there were a few reminders; but, then there was an article about a company named GiveDirectly which seems like its taking that idea and walking forward. Here’s a snippet of that article:

…The idea couldn’t be simpler:

1. People donate through GD’s webpage
2. GD locates poor households in Kenya (see below)
3. GD transfers your donation electronically (through the M-Pesa mobile payments system) to a recipient’s cell phone (they send each household $500 per year for two years)>
4. The recipient collects the transfer

GD reckons that in this way, it can get 90 cents in every donated donor into the hands of poor people. Step 2 is interesting: ‘We do this in three steps.  We first select regions of Kenya with high poverty rates using census data.  We then identify villages with low-quality housing and access to an agent providing mobile-phone-based payment services. Finally, we identify the poorest households in these villages using simple, transparent criteria: we target all households living in homes made out of mud, wood, and grass. These criteria effectively identify relatively poor households and are generally perceived by the community as fair. We record eligible households’ phone numbers or, for those that do not have a phone, provide them with a SIM card. We follow up initial identification with a rigorous process of audits to prevent mistakes or fraud.’

Read the rest of Why Don’t We Just Send Aid Money Directly to Poor People’s Cellphones? at From Poverty to Power

So, there’s that idea solved if you will (enhanced is probably a better way to put it). GiveDirectly doesn’t seem look to enable those persons who already have some kind of financial backing to obtain more (though I am sure that their efforts would flow there with no problem). Ther efforts capitalize on the reality that mobile phones are just as (if not more) prelevant amongst marganilzd groups as a contact point than we normally take interest to. Then, thorugh analytics and cooperation with cellular providers and mobile account/phone owners, people are able to be given aid directly. Its almost as simple as putting a coin in the hands of a person on the street, just a digital reinvention of that process.

There are some issues with GiveDirectly’s approach for some efforts (and the linked article goes into these). However, the basic idea makes too much sense not to do (even with existing solutions such as Nokia Money, PayPal’s SMS/Mobile/App w/Bump efforts, and others. Not to say that service providers don’t have to be “seen” in these transactions, but if things could be done quickly, efficiently, and transparently, we’d probably be better able to address the needs of the digitally accessible poor than we do right now. What do you think?

Technically, it’s the last week of the year and I am supposed to be on vacation. It not felt needed to be taking this time off, but even felt that unction from the Lord that I really needed to set this aside and just breathe a bit.

And that’s been the case for the most part. Ok, so I cheated a bit one day and pre-wrote another post. But I’ve remained quiet on Twitter and in much administrative work. The break was needed. Then I was awaken from a nap on Christmas Day with a former idea about redoing the UI for the NET Bible. You see, I haven’t found a suitable application for the N8 which I own (I have indeed changed my perspective towards my needs for a Bible app on that style of a mobile several times), and have therefore left things stoic with the HTML files which come from the NET Bible’s publishing. It’s not difficult, as it is a bookmark in my web browser, making me just a browser search away from further readings. But, it’s not the most mobile-optimized experience. Hence, the waking from a really good 2nd nap.

Establishing the Goal, Identifying the Issues
The first issue that anyone runs into with mobile bible readers is getting around. Yes, there are other aspects such as speed, available content, notes, etc. But, I tend to always boil things down to two key features: reading and searching. Both of these aren’t done well enough in general on mobile, nor on specific platforms, to tilt me one way or another. I figured that since I’m in a browser often enough, and across two platforms which don’t have much shared between them in terms of consistently updated, shared applications, that I could do something that better fits my personal needs. One part of that is navigation, another part is that I search for content differently. The ideal reader for me would need to be equally proficient in both of these.

I am tacking the first issue of navigation on my mobile for this NET Bible. I want a UI that works on my mobile device, with one hand, that spatially orients me to the text, and doesn’t (necessarly) lock me into an app as much as it makes the case for a translation that works and I can change that source as needed. Reading the Word shouldn’t be a distraction, it should make me smile, even in the parts where the justice of God is splitting folks wide open. The UI is first.

Second is search. I’d like to be able to search anything and everything in the text. And then save that search. Search should work as fast as a contact search does. It also should be intelligent – showing me what I searched for previously, and automatically saving the search when its done. That’s the piece that would take the longest to nail. Maybe its a native solution only here – that’s ok, I’m willing to compromise from the route I’ve taken with doing the UI with HTML/CSS/JS – I think.

What’s Been Developed to Date
What you are looking at is essentially a framework, slightly HTML5-friendly and leveraging jQuery till my JS skills improve (uhmm, CodeYear is looking quite attractive). This is what I’m now using to get around the many, many pages that make up the NET Bible on my mobile. And the really neat thing is that it gets me around, while getting out of the way so that I can simply read. That is key for all of us when looking at reader applications and services, and I think this nails that well.

I’m skipping the landing page that’s done on the official NET Bible. Since this is a personal project, I’m really all about just getting into the text as fast as possible. As you can tell from the screenshot, each section has its own color. That’s just a visual aide to get me into that section as fast as possible. Interesting thing here was how the colors made it easier to navigate on the tablet, where it made little difference initally on the mobile.

At the top of the page is what amounts to a navigation menu. That’s just there to refine things and to setup an eventual search feature. I’ve ignored some (not all) of the conventions for touch-based navigation because I want to keep more of the screen available for text. Being able to have as much screen as possible for reading is important to me.

Remaining Issues/Imperfections
I’ve actually not yet gotten the text placed into this yet (at the time of this article’s writing/editing). I know what I want to have in terms of look and feel, but not sure how best to implement it from a JavaScript perspective. That’s a knowledge gap on my end that I hope to solve, but if you take a look at my sketches, its something that’s probably a lot easier than I’ve been thinking about it.

Another issue, and this follows the text, is that of having the notes show/hide in a pretty manner. The notes are one of the key reasons that I use the NET Bible (really, all published versions of the Bible should come with through translators’ notes). Having those notes show on a tap/swipe manner is something that I think I’d have to switch to using jQuery Mobile or jQuery Touch – or even a custom JavaScript function – to make work.

Performance is a problem. The Nokia N8 received a new web browser with the Nokia/Symbian Anna update, but it still seems to suffer a good bit with my using of jQuery. That’s going to bug me when the full text gets in there. That’s sitting as a near-major issue.

I have not (nor plan to) test this on every mobile platform. I built this on my iPad, and made sure it worked on my N8. It’s totally something to address a personal (peeve) need of mine, but I am compelled as all get out to share it. It uses jQuery, though should probably have the JS written from scratch into th page since it uses so little. And it relies on CSS being supported enough so that it works cleanly (though the HTML is semantically written so that it doesn’t matter if CSS is not supported at all). This also uses a bit of data for the image and for jQuery. So, if you wanted to use this as is, be sure you are aware of that part. I’m not sharing this to support it – only to share something that can be useful for your pursuits.

Things to Work On
At this point, I haven’t tweaked the NET Bible chapter pages as I would like to. The notes are my most important reason for using this text and figuring how to take their code for opening the notes into the footer area that I have is a bugger. I want that to work most of all, but haven’t yet figured up how to make it work best on my device (let alone anyone else’s).

Search needs to be worked on. I have the flow of how search works, now its a manner of building search that works best for (a) the device I’m using and (b) the approach I’ve taken. I’ll probably be leaning on the insights of some developer communities for this.

Why Even Do This
Personally, I’ve just not been happy with any Bible reader since Bible+. Part of that is that my attention and needs have changed even more than I’ve changed devices. I started simply wanting to read, then it became a matter of comparing versions, then needing something to facilitate teaching/discussions, then it was all about just having apps. Now, I just want the text. As much of it as I can take in, as much of it that’s historically receivable. As much as I can that will continue to provoke me to grow up in this. For all of that, I was practically compelled to build one at some point (Brett and LJ, I’ve listened).

On the other side of this, I’ve gotten a lot of questions about formats for documents on mobiles in 2011. I keep telling folks the same things: .txt and .html. Those are the most ubiquitous formats out there for text documents and work everywhere. If you can get your content into HTML 4.01 you really can meet just about every device made in the last decade that has a browser (regardless if they have a connection or not). If you have a “container” like this, and just fill in the text with whatever txt/html archive that you have available, it works. Many people don’t need multiple versions, they just need to get in and read.

I also thought about how the community came together to solve issues like this with the Palm Bible+ app from the Palm Pilot days. For those of you with a PalmOS PDA or Treo/Centro around still, you should dust it off and download that app and a few modules. Notice something different compared to current apps? Speed in the navigation and search. Heck, if you have peeked into the manual, you’d notice that there’s some easy to remember/use text shortcuts for just about every primary feature, and a few not-so-primary ones (I wrote the manual, and designed the website). Most of all, it gets out of the way. You get into the text and everything else gets out of the way. This is what I thought of when I had the NET Bible and other mobile bible apps. Yes, there is some extent of “designing the experience” that happens, but in consideration to the “Father in heaven who revealed this,” (Jesus said this to Peter) too little chance for that to happen. In a real sense of things, “get out of the way and let me meet God (in my mobile bible reading).”

I have ideas of how to do the search on my N8, but need to know if I need to hack the widgets/WRT feature and figure some kind of database that would live on my memory card which that search could address those queries (maybe there’s a search widget that could be constrained to the local files and/or an online search). Then I would have it, something similar enough to the simplicity of the PalmOS experience, but much like apps today where I am taking (some) advantage of the context of the device I am using and building from there.

From Here To…
This is something that I’m hoping to keep my attention towards finishing this year. Even if I don’t have the N8 at the end of the year, this is something that could work on just about any device I’d go with (except the iPhone). There’s a bit of pain happening with building this, and some understanding (again) of the fun folks (YouVersion, Logos, OliveTree, etc.) go through in building this. But, since I’m just looking to build something that works for me, I can keep most of the distractions at bay and just go for it. Plus, I’m using the HTML archive of the NET Bible as I’m building this, so if there’s something I’m not doing right, it can change pretty quickly.

For you, this is merely an exercise to share. Some of you might be in a similar mode that I’m in – nothing quite works and you have just enough technical skill to nearly get there. If you feel like taking a stab at this for your own efforts, here’s a link to my public Dropbox folder continaing the mobile container and the NET Bible archive (if someone puts this on GitHub, awesome). Whatever you do, let the folks at Bible.org know. I think this will help their efforts (and I’ve not even broken my brain on doing the UI completly from an icon-driven aspect, yet).

Mobile-Friendly and Personalization As Core to User Experience
The takeaway from this project is that there have been several methods to engaging Bible/document reading, social/offline networking, funddraising, and other initiatives in mobile ministry. However, even if you nail the features, at some point in the maturing of that person using the service or the company offering it, doing something that fits the mobile context and that’s personalized will come forth. It might not be the aims of your projects initially, but do know that eventually, they all point to these goals needing to be met.

Some people commit to reading the Bible anew at the beginning of the year. I’m trying to make a Bible app… yea, that fits.

During my vacation (last week of 2011), I visited the church my best friend attends in PA and got a chance to meet the elder in charge of operational items for the church. My bro plugged me and what I’ve been doing with MMM and we got into a quick conversation about the church’s move into TV/broadcasting that they expect for this year. In listening, I started to ask why they are looking to go broadcasting, but changed my question to something a bit different. This is a paraphrase of what I proposed to him:

A TV/broadcast ministry for the size of church that you have will need probably about 5-6 dedicated people. You’ll want 2 camera persons, a video tech, a sound tech, and then a production manager to keep all of those together. You’ll probably need to have one of those persons, if not someone (or 2) else to take the content and do any further graphic/sound editing to the final product. And then there’s likely someone on that team, if not another team entirely that is going to be responsible for putting it on a website and making it “press ready” for other local stakeholders who’d want to rebroadcast it. That’s a lot of folks. 

Many of the members have mobile devices (feature phone, smartphones, and tablets were all visible during the service I attended). Why not create mobile media (mobimedia) teams in which people can sign up and do one of three things: recording video, recording audio, and taking still pictures. Ideally, you’d want to make sure that you keep the groups mixed so that the devices are being used within their best capacity, but then you end up with the people who are part of your community, giving a view of a service or event from their perspective, not just the one that’s most camera friendly.

You would then have just two positions to create for the community: a production designer/manager who would be responsible for taking all of the content from the devices, and then creating the “official” video that goes public, and a public relations-like person who would field questions/comments from the public/stakeholders.

When I proposed this to that elder, it was like a light bulb went off. He never considered that (a) the normal design of doing multimedia would need so many layers of people and processes and that (b) it would be possible to include the community in such a way that they’d have a greater sense of ownership of the community and the preached Gospel message.

Now, there are a few things here. You aren’t going to get RED camera quality video or Dolby quality audio from everyone’s mobiles, so you’d want to make sure that you have some kind of grid that would allow you to see the quality of video/audio/stills so that you can organize your teams appropriately. Then again, there was this movie shot entirely on a Nokia N8, so quality isn’t really a question right?

You’d want to make sure that you design a policy that allows people to keep whatever they record, but with the statement that if they make their’s public that it cannot be considered official content from the church. So, you might have a Flickr/YouTube gallery that they would all upload the pics/videos to, but then have something of an official “set” that becomes the public-facing gallery. You’d also have some streams for training that would have to be taken up. For example, you’d definitely want to do a workshop talking about how to best take photos/videos during a service (mindful of flash, camera sounds, zoom, etc.). There might only be a few folks who can do this well in your churches now, but what if that few turned into a few folks from your teen, college, and senior ministries? Considering that many mobiles really are just fine in doing this, these are the kinds of thoughts you’d want to have going into it.

I’m of the opinion that mobiles and people are ready for doing this. But, if I’m to pull this off, I’d have to start a church or something to prove it (uhmmm, the people formerly known as congregation) or just point to those folks already doing it in similar genres (Mobile Media Toolkit, hint, hint).

So, now I throw this one out there to you. Some of you are in churches of similar size (<250 people) and have similar contexts (cable channel access, many mobile devices, need to provoke greater involvement from community, etc.). Couldn't this work for you? And if it couldn't (because there's some unspoken rule about using the latest greatest cameras/tools/tech, this is just not normal, we don't have money/resources, etc.), then why? 

In a report from the 2011 Mobile Marketing Awards, Technokitten published a list of the nominees and winners – alongside their projects. This listing should prove helpful.

Most Effective Mobile Site

Winner: The Guardian for The Guardian Mobile Site
Summary: Developing the mobile site is part of The Guardian’s Open Strategy. Its core purpose is to increase the reach of the brand. The aim is to deliver text and image content in a fast, fresh site that will appeal to readers on any handset in any country.
Results: Since launch in March 2009, m.guardian.co.uk has grown into the UK’s number one mobile content service for the digital newspaper industry, achieving over 7 million unique browsers and page views of more than 36 million per month. It accounts for around 12 per cent of The Guardian’s total digital traffic and has seen a 233 per cent increase year on year. m.guardian.co.uk has also seen strong growth in its global audience, particularly from the US (2.12m unique browsers) and Canada, Ireland, Australia and India. Combining targeted mobile ad solutions with rich-media formats has allowed The Guardian to grow advertising revenues by more than 80 per cent year on year.
Finalists:

• bemoko/Macmillan Cancer Support for Macmillan Mobile Site
• Found/Autoglass for Smashing the Glass Repair Market on Mobile
• Incentivated/Centaur for Marketing Week Live!
• New Look/MIG for New Look’s Mobile Commerce Site

Somo/Audi for Audi Mobile Site

Read the rest of Technokitten’s Report from the 2011 Mobile Marketing Awards The video in this post is the winning Pepsi entry, Content in a Bottle

Successful mobile marketing campigns point the way to avenues and practices which can (and should) be used within mobile ministry efforts – especially where engagement, interactivity, widespread adoption, or content management play important roles.