Posts Tagged Web 2.0

OKWU Alumni Twitterers!

Posted by John in Church 2.0 on June 21, 2008

For those of you who read my blog and happen to be Alumni of Oklahoma Wesleyan University/ Bartlesville Wesleyan College, I’ve got something pretty cool that we can be involved in!

I’ve had several of you comment that I’m “always updating my Facebook” all the time. I’d like to sort of explain that. I use a service called Twitter to update my profile. I simply send a text message via my phone and it automatically updates my blog, my Facebook profile, and a couple of other things.

Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?

In using Twitter, I’ve found several people that are using it on a regular basis for ministry purposes. One of those people is Marcie Piper who is the wife of Dr. Piper from Oklahoma Wesleyan University!

Marcie is working with the summer ministry teams of OKWU to encourage them to not only twitter
like anyone else and to each other, but to also send direct messages to the http://alive.okwu.edu website.

I’ve asked Marcie if the alumni can participate in this as well and she has agreed to setup an Alumni section on the site! So – if you’re interested in being a part of this – setup a twitter account and then
send me your username and I’ll get you access so that you can start joining the Twitter fun on the alive.okwu.edu website! So, if you want to “follow” me on Twitter, my account is: http://www.twitter.com/seedthrower.

Thanks and looking forward to receiving tweets from you!

Some important links
http://www.twitter.com

http://alive.okwu.edu

http://www.twitter.com/owu

Fun, OKWU, Twitter, Web 2.0

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Churches that do Websites well

Posted by John in Church Websites, Website Development on April 14, 2007

So, with working with church websites for the past 6 1/2 years, I thought that I might share some of the things that I think about when it comes to website development and how it can be used in the church. I have compiled an initial list of sites and ideas that I believe would be beneficial to to begin thinking about. I am going to break it up into the following posts and I’ll try to post each night:

Churches that do websites well
Social Networking sites
Blogs and Podcasts
Web 2.0 vs. Web 1.0 Websites
AJAX websites (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML)
Churches that do not do websites well

So, with that said, here we go!

http://www.takethejourney.org/home.htm
- Note that they are incorporating Flickr in their website for their photos.

http://www.vintagechurch.org/
- Note the ease of navigation – They do the BLACK theme well, the colors work well.

http://www.the-river.org/
- Please note two things:
1. The use of a community portal (http://the-reef.org) for the members of the church to be a part of
2. The use of Google’s calendar program on their front page with all of their events on it.

http://www.lifechurch.tv/
- Couple of things:
1. FLASH FLASH FLASH FLASH – this is maybe the coolest and fastest Flash, How do they do that?
2. Locations: click on a location and each location shows what’s going on at that location.
3. Does the Black theme on the secondary pages as opposed to the primary page – interesting concept
4. Online Store (http://www.lifechurch.tv/store/) uses an Open Source program called OSCommerce (http://www.oscomerce.com/)
5. OVERALL: What you don’t see is a complete other website behind this that is part of the church community portal

FYI, I THINK ALL OF THE SITES LISTED ABOVE USE A CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM CALLED DRUPAL
(http://www.drupal.org)

http://www.skylinechurch.org/ (the obligatory Wesleyan Church)
- Couple of things:
1. Style is CLEAN and CRISP. This is a very popular concept, using white as a primary part of the website
2. Ability to build community online (Classified section and Community Involvement on front page)
3. PODCAST OF SERMONS – Essential if we want are “in it to win it” (Thank you Hillary Clinton).
4. PDF of Weekly bulletin – NOTE: The pastors sermon outline is NOT shown
5. ALSO about the Bulletin – The Bulletin MATCHES the website which MATCHES the church – this is called Branding

http://www.yorktownbaptist.org/
- Please note some things:
1. FLASH FLASH FLASH FLASH – Constant but very suddle flash throughout the site. Watch the front page.
2. Ability to give online
3. The site is fully integrated with a software package called Fellowship One – (http://www.fellowshipone.com) Might be worth checking out and seeing what their software does and thinking about how you can adapt it or incorporate it into your site.

That’s it for now, have a great night!

Church Websites, Web 2.0, Website Development

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Social Networking Sites

Posted by John in Web 2.0, Website Development on April 11, 2007

So, it seems that one of the biggest things on the Internet is social networking sites. Everyone seems to have one. Rather then tell you what I like and don’t like about them, I think I’ll provide you with some links to go visit them yourself.

Before we get started looking at social networking sites, let’s clearly define what a social networking site is. The term “social networking website” refers to a website that members can join where they will have a profile of interest, write and receive some type of commentary, and interact and relate with other profiles that are displayed in conjuction with that profile.

A social network is not a bulletin board, a forum, a mailing list, a BBS, a MUD/MOO, or a MMORPGS. Yes you can interact and meet new people and make friends, but they are NOT social networking sites. Hope this is clear.

Why do I think we need to look at social networking sites in conjunction with our church website? Well, for one thing, this is something that very cutting edge with technology and at the same time very popular among the teens-30′s group. But, just because it’s popular doesn’t mean we automatically do it. I think we consider this concept because fundamentally, the desire of the social networking sites is to build a community of like-minded individuals and connect them to each other. If we can further the Kingdom by creating an environment where people can interact with other people from our church, then not only are we building the church, but we are building the relationships that people have with each other in the church.

There are some negatives and some drawbacks to social networking sites, but what I want you to think about is what could we do with this idea and how could we incorporate this concept into our church website?

Okay, so let’s get to it!

Church Related

MyChurch – http://www.mychurch.org

Friends/Relationship Related sites

MySpace – http://www.myspace.com/

Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/

Friendster – http://www.friendster.com/

Cyworld – http://us.cyworld.com/main/index.php

Orkut – http://www.orkut.com

Xanga – http://www.xanga.com/

Meetup – http://www.meetup.com/

Business Related Sites