Category: techno

FREE: Videos now through Christmas

WorshipHouse Media is giving away a FREE download every weekday until Christmas! That’s right… every weekday. Go HERE and click on the “Daily Freebie” ad to go to each day’s freebie.

Stock up on some videos for your church for 2008 or for this Christmas.

Hat tip to Church Video Ideas

More changes to SSL

Got around to setting up accounts with del.icio.us and twitter over the last few days. So far I’m liking them both. Don’t know why I’ve been putting it off. They may mean I’ll cut down on some of my usual blog posting, but I don’t know.

You would think that I would have jumped on these bandwagons a long time ago, but I put them off until seeing them really utilized by folks like Thomas and others. Even various organizations and companies are getting on the bandwagon to easily share links within their organizations or to clients.

For example The Sunlight Foundation sent me to their del.icio.us page a week or two ago to show me all the articles and information I might ever want on their new Google Earth layer. Rather than e-mailing me a list of a few articles, I was sent a link and it had loads and loads of links and information.

Also several presidential campaigns are running del.icio.us pages and twitter pages as folks follow the candidates around.

If you’re not familiar with the two services, del.icio.us allows folks to save bookmarks for websites, videos and misc. that are of interest and that they want to share with others. As you’ve probably noticed a lot of my posts are simply links to other sites and articles I want to share with others. Now with del.icio.us that’s done in one easy to follow place. I’m working on trying to set it up so it will automatically post one blog entry with all the links for the day – but I’m still working out the kinks on that one. Until then, you can visit http://del.icio.us/jdblundell to see the various links.

As for twitter, the service allows users to keep others posted throughout the day & night about their going ons. It’s like a simplified report or re-cap of the day – 24/7. Don’t know how often I’ll be using it or updating it. We’ll see. It can be updated form the website, my cellphone or IM and it also updates my Facebook status too. My twitter status will update on the right hand side of SSL, right under the calendar or on my twitter page.

Crazy stuff going on around here – who knows where it will all lead.

UPDATE: With the pending shutdown of Delicious sometime back I jumped ship and moved to Pinboard.in which has far more features and benefits than Delicious ever did. I highly recommend it. You can see my links there at: http://pinboard.in/u:jdblundell.

Is your church on YouTube?

I’ve been doing my best to post all the original videos our church does on YouTube and now on MetaCafe.
I posted a video showing the recent baptisms at encounter on MetaCafe and within the last week or so it’s already been viewed more than 650 times.
Today there was a very interesting comment on the video page:

didn’t actually get it
wat r they doin?wat does it mean encounter baptisms?

It got me thinking about several things.

  1. There are people out there that don’t understand our Christianeze (Christian lingo). It’s so easy to forget when we get caught in our Christian circles and bubbles that we forget the rest of the world doesn’t know what we’re talking about. If all we talk to is Christian people and only talk about Christian things, the outside world probably looks at us and can’t understand a thing we’re saying. Just like the American Life episode Pray talked about.
  2. I could have posted the video on GodTube. Sure, it’s a “Christian” video and GodTube is a “Christian web site” and “Christians who understand our lingo” use the website but who is that really reaching out to? If we keep retreating to our Christian ghettos then who in the world is going to tell mr bako or others what baptism is or why we do it?
  3. Video is a POWERFUL medium. I could blog about baptism all day long but my words are limited, seeing what baptism is in video form really shows people what it’s all about.
  4. Viral videos and Web 2.0 are even more POWERFUL. Within minutes and days of posting the baptism video on MetaCafe, the video was available on my blog, the encounter blog and it was being shared all over Myspace and e-mail. The families being represented were sharing the video with their friends and family members. And they were passing it along to more people and more people – hopefully moving outside the Christian ghetto.

It just makes me think and realize – we need to be producing more content that’s available to everyone and understandable to everyone. What are you and your church doing?

The best campaign website

Zephyr Teachout, writes that “Mike Huckabee’s campaign has the most effective online operation of any of the candidates.”

I think there are a lot of things folks can learn from this in any organization – especially in ministry.
I think each of these areas are ones that churches, ministries and other political candidates and organizations can put into play.
Here’s the highlights:

  1. He has the best use of video in the year that YouTube matteres the most. He is the only candidate consistently–every day–sharing user-created videos on his blog.
  2. He has done minor blogger outreach since April, to great effect; the twice-a-month phone calls with Huckabee and bloggers (homeschoolers, godbloggers, anyone who wanted to sign up)
  3. His blog has typos. This is not in itself a good thing, but evidence of a good thing. A website is not a candidate, and it is not a flyer, but most people encounter websites more like they do an individual than they do a flyer–does it excude some authenticity, does it actually attempt to communicate, or does it try to shut down any conversation except “My candidate is the bees knees.”
  4. His website is not a Stepford Site. It has big buttons that are about making it easy for users, not slick presentation that are about making it impressive for the webteam.
  5. He encourages independent action. He encourages people to go to Meetup. He encourages the growth of Huck’s Army (a very active independent Huckabee forum).

“All of this has led to massive rise in traffic (now well above Clinton’s and Obama’s, only lower than Ron Paul’s). And like Ron Paul’s supporters’ use of the internet, it is helping him in the polls and in support around the country. Unlike Ron Paul, the “help” may lead to winning key states and the primary.”
In what areas could you improve your ministry website/blog by utilizing some of these tips?

Scientists create embryonic stem cells from skin

From NPR:
Two teams of scientists have independently discovered a way to turn ordinary human skins cells into stem cells with the same characteristics as those derived from human embryos, a breakthrough that could open the door for advanced medical therapies.
If the work holds true to its promise, it would largely bypass ethic issues that have dogged research on human embryonic stem cells and allow scientists to tailor the cells to specific individuals, eliminating the possibility of rejection.

In my opinion, if this works like they say, this is HUGE. Imagine having the use/power of stem cells for research without the ethical implications of destroying an embryo. Simply amazing. This could lead to so many things.

Listen to the story.