The study reveals a big shifts in the percentage of teens, young adults, and older adults who blog:
14% of online teens now blog, down from 28% in 2006
15% of young adults (18-29) now blog, down from 24% in 2007
11% of adults over the age of 29 now blog, up from 7%
The drop in blogging among teens and young adults coincides with the rise in social networking. 73% of online teens use social networks, up from 55% in 2006.
For the last 3 weeks I’ve posted Wednesday Website Weviews. Each one has been a comprehensive website review providing background on the site and going into detail with opinions and suggestions concerning
appearance & layout
navigation & usability
purpose & goals
content
search engine presence
interactivity & social media integration
Additionally, this week OurChurch.Com kicked off Website Design Month and so many of the posts here on Christian Web Trends will be about design issues.
I’ve got to confess that I feel like a bit of a hypocrite posting about web design issues and reviewing sites here, because I think the design of this blog… well… I think it…
Has your church’s website had its current design for a while? You think it’s getting a little stale or outdated but not sure if really needs a redesign?
Every year my church puts a lot of time and energy into putting on an exceptional, creative Christmas production. It’s an important part of our outreach strategy as we’ve found most people are open to attending Christmas services, even those who are not believers.
This year it was a Blue-Man-esque production called Me and My Drum.
In addition to putting a big sign out front and encouraging members of the church to personally invite their friends and neighbors, the church decided to try something new to help get the word out:
To communicate effectively in the 21st century you have to:
Give people the information they want.
Give it to them via the medium they want to receive it.
Most churches have a lot of ministries and a lot of activities going on – children’s ministry, student ministry, men’s ministry, women’s ministry, small group ministry, music ministry, and on and on. Everyone in the church wants information about the ministries they’re involved in, but they don’t want information about everything else. That can be a challenge.
Everyone has their own preferred communications channel or medium.
Website
Email
RSS feed
Facebook
Twitter
Text message
Communicating to each person via his or her preferred medium can be a challenge.
Recently, I started thinking about a unique strategy that could meet both of these challenges.
R. Joseph Owles wrote that his vision for The Kingdom of God Christian Community is “to grow into a fully functional church–online church for an online community of faith.” He requested the review because he wants “to know what is limiting my church’s online growth. is it merely lack of advertisement, or is the format undermining the goal.”
A little more about the site:
Site was created using OurChurch.com’s NE1 Web Builder
Target audience: That’s the tricky question. Non-committed Christians and those who aren’t Christian or were at one time but have ventured away.
Budget: whatever i can scrounge together
Goals: Cool to have video worship posted, adapting the sermon and readings week to week; and have an online bible study via skype or yahoo chat or something.
The 10 Commandments were given to us thousands of years ago. Sure there was no Facebook or Twitter back then, but the principles still apply today. Here’s my take on how the 10 commandments apply to social networking.
1) Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
Don’t allow social networking to become a god. Are you losing hours at a time to Farmville? Do you interrupt meals with family and friends to send and receive messages? Is your first impulse when you wake up to check email/Facebook/Twitter instead of listen to God? Has posting become more important than praying? If so, maybe social networking has become a god.
2) Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven images.
Throughout history people have created things to remind them of God – sculptures, stained glass windows, crucifixes – which people eventually began to worship instead of God. Likewise many people have become enamored with the potential social networks have as a platform to share the gospel, connect people to their church, or share spiritual insights. Be careful not to allow the tools used in the name of God to become more important than your relationship with God.
3) Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.
I am beginning to believe that in the next decade “search” will decline along with SEO in favor of discovery via your social network.
It struck me as something worth further thought, so I copied it to my blog ideas file and let it bounce around in my head for a while.
As it bounced around I realized there are a bunch of other things people are doing on social networking sites which they used to do elsewhere. As a result, there are bunch of sites that are losing traffic to social networks.
Some folks at Mosaic Church in LA, which is led by Erwin McManus (one of my favorite authors and speakers) have created a Doritos Commercial which is in the running to air during the Superbowl.
It’s one of the 6 finalists in Doritos Crash The Super Bowl contest, which means it’s already netted it’s creators $25k. The 3 commercials that get the most votes will air during the Super Bowl. The site doesn’t show current vote totals, but if the number of views and comments are any indication (it’s currently tops in both), “Casket” is on its way to Miami.
According to contest rules, if the commercial gets first place on the USA Today Ad Meter, it’ll net them another $1 million. Lest you dismiss that possibility, last year top Super Bowl ad was in fact a Doritos submission.
So, what’d you think of the ad?
Thinking about huddling up with your church’s video team to start spit-balling ideas for the 2011 Super Bowl?
The Pew Research Center released results from their latest survey of teens and young adults about their Internet, social media, and mobile phone usage.
I’ve got a confession to make.
Has your church’s website had its current design for a while? You think it’s getting a little stale or outdated but not sure if really needs a redesign?
One of the questions I’m often asked is, “How do I know if my website needs to be redesigned?”
Every year 
To communicate effectively in the 21st century you have to:
Today we’re reviewing the website for 
The 10 Commandments were given to us thousands of years ago. Sure there was no Facebook or Twitter back then, but the principles still apply today. Here’s my take on how the 10 commandments apply to social networking.
Recently 
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