A few friends of mine and I are working on a missions-related website. We’d like to find several panoramic (i.e., stitched together) photos that would be missions-related (show the faces of people of the world or be of fairly recognizable city scenes). Size requirements - we would have to be able to comfortably resize them to 1600 pixels wide by 185 pixels high. “Comfortably” means they would have to start out at least this size or larger and when resized, they would still have to present a reasonable view. For example, I can find appropriate images that are larger than 1600 pixels wide, but because they aren’t panoramic, when I resize them to 1600 pixels wide by 185 pixels high, we end up with a person’s nose on one end of the image and basically nothing recognizable for the rest of the image to the right.

Anyone know of a good, inexpensive source of such images? I’ve tried istockphoto and bigstockphoto (two of my favorite sources for inexpensive stock photography), but haven’t had much luck yet.

Any help readers of this site could lend would be greatly appreciated!

Churches and ministries might be interested in an announcement from Marqui today about their intention to give away a free web marketing solution to one non-profit organization. The Marqui press release can be found here.

Applications are being accepted through October 15 at this page.

Marqui has "developed the first Web-based suite that simplifies and automates a broad range of marketing communications activities, including e-mail campaigns, Web content management and blogging." They are perhaps best known for their controversial "Pay Bloggers" initiative in which they paid approximately twenty bloggers $800 per month to write about the company.

I have a question for Christian bloggers.

Are there any Christian sites you routinely ping when you post to your blog? I know about the traditional sites bloggers might ping (the sites listed at http://pingomatic.com/, for example). But are there any similar sites which accept pings from bloggers which are specifically Christian in nature?

Does such a thing even exist? Thanks for any help you can offer - I really appreciate it!

I came across a very interesting blog a couple of days ago: MicroExplosion. Written by Bill Seaver, a Christian internet marketing strategist, MicroExplosion “seeks to extend an organization’s message and meaning using the new media (web 2.0) technologies, ideas and strategies from a Christian perspective. Specifically, MicroExplosion focuses on the awareness, explanation and application of this technology for churches, ministries and Christian businesses. Generally, MicroExplosion should be helpful for anyone interested in the application of web 2.0 technology.”

His article on The Six Categories of Web 2.0 was especially interesting.

Here is a set of good links on cell phone usage in Africa. Lots of implications for how we might use digital technology to reach the African continent.

In War-Torn Congo, Going Wireless To Reach Home
The Amazing Growth of Mobile Tech in Africa
Forget the $100 PC
Phones Teach Written Literacy

I came across all of these links by following one link from Robert Scoble.

I haven’t been posting much lately primarily because I’ve been working night and day on a new, exciting web project (sorry, can’t tell you about it yet).

In the meantime, I found a nice series of articles by Tim Lehrian entitled “Church Web Site Annoyances”:

Church Web Site Annoyances, Volume 1 Church Web Site Annoyances, Volume 2 Church Web Site Annoyances, Volume 3 Church Web Site Annoyances, Volume 4 Church Web Site Annoyances, Volume 5

I especially liked his comments about using photos of people rather than church buildings.

The current issue of the Lausanne World Pulse, the online voice of the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization, includes an article about Sacred Ink, one of our partners in the gospel.

Written by Sacred Ink founder, Chuckk Gerwig, the article represents a good description of the way the new website is being used to reach out to the tattoo subculture.

A few weeks ago, I posted a brief mention of an article about how phone and cable companies were backing legislation that would require companies to pay fees to faciliate the faster delivery of their websites and other online services to consumers.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, I posted an update which detailed how Sergey Brin of Google was working against the legislation.

Today, I noticed this article which says that an amendment on “Internet Neutrality” was rejected by a Senate subcommittee.

I’m not sure how it will ultimately effect the efforts of the church in cyberspace, but I think this issue continues to merit a watchful eye.

A few weeks ago, I wrote this brief post about how phone and cable companies were backing legislation that would require companies to pay fees to faciliate the faster delivery of their websites and other online services to consumers.

Today, I noticed this snippet buried in an article about an admission by Google co-founder Sergey Brin that Google had compromised its principles in agreeing to accede to Chinese censorship demands:

Brin visited Washington to ask U.S. senators to approve a plan that would prevent telephone and cable companies from collecting premium fees from companies such as Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! for faster delivery of their services. Brin, dressed casually in jeans, sneakers and a black sport jacket, said he wasn’t sure whether he changed any lawmakers’ minds.

Seems like the legislation is not so “unnoticed” any more.

YWAMer Bill Hutchison has an interesting post on his blog about fo.rtuito.us, a new website that randomly introduces you (virtually) to a “new friend” every four days. After four days of interaction with your new friend, you get to decide if you want to “stay friends” or not.

Bill sees this as an opportunity for internet evangelism. I think there are possibilities here, but the one drawback I see is that there doesn’t appear to be a local element. I was hoping that I would be able to specify that I only want to meet friends in my geographical area (which would then create the possibility of an eventual face-to-face relationship). As a married man, I would also prefer it if I could specify that I only want to be introduced to male “friends.” I signed up for the service to see what parameters could be specified, and it was a bit disconcerting to immediately be “introduced” to a female “friend.”

But it is an interesting idea. Thoughts?

To be honest, this smells a bit like a conspiracy theory to me, but ....

Proposed Rule Changes Would Tangle The Web

Anyone know any more about this? If it’s true, what are the implications for internet evangelism?

comScore Networks, a global information provider and consultancy to which leading companies turn for consumer behavior insight, issued a press release yesterday claiming that 694 million people, age 15+, used the Internet worldwide from all locations in March 2006. Read the full press release.

A few notes:

1. The figure excludes traffic from public computers such as internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs, segments of internet usage which are much more prominent in the third world than they are in Western countries and which reportedly are on the rise dramatically (especially mobile phones).
2. The figure pertains only to people 15 years of age or older
3. The 694 million people who use the internet represent 14% of the world’s population which is 15 years of age or older
4. The online audience in the U.S. represents less than a quarter of the worldwide online audience — major Asian countries such as China, Japan, and South Korea make up more than 25% of the worldwide online audience.