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.

Aaron Brazell wrote a guest article yesterday on Darren Rowse’s ProBlogger website which could prove helpful to church webmasters who inadvertently post information about missionaries in creative access nations.

I’ve had to take similar steps in a couple of situations — one in which I was unfortunately not aware in advance that my client did not want to be identified as a missionary and one in which friends of ours moved to a sensitive area of the world and later found that a church was inadvertently publishing their information.

When this sort of thing happens, panic can set in fairly quickly and knowing how to address it quickly helps a great deal. The moral of the story is that it’s good to have a plan in advance!

Mark Bradford has started an online discussion forum to provide a place to converse about evangelism:

EvangelismForum.com

Why not stop by, register, and introduce yourself?

Thanks to Andrew Careaga for the heads-up!

The World Missions Atlas Project has recently relaunched their website, WorldMap.org, and it looks to be a very helpful resource.

From the home page of the website:

Welcome to the World Missions Atlas Project (WorldMAP).  Our mission is comprehensive: To create maps of languages and people groups for each country of the world while linking appropriate missions related data.  The status of each language and people group is evaluated with regards to the JESUS Film and Bible translation as well as their current level of exposure to the gospel message (also known as the “Status of Evangelization").

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. 

Rohit Bhargava recently blogged about Placecasting — “sending a message to bluetooth enabled devices within a specified geographic area.”

Within his article, Rohit mentions two solutions for Placecasting: a commercial application provided by Proximity Media (a subsidiary of Wiremedia) and an open-source application named Consola (by the way, if you visit the Consola website, don’t be fooled by the bars that move back and forth in a semi-circle — contrary to what I originally thought, this is not a loading movie for a Flash website — I must have sat there looking at it for a full minute before it dawned on me that it was just an animated logo!).

From the two solutions’ respective websites:

Proximity Media
Wiremedia’s proximity advertising solution allows for the distribution of rich media content and applications to mobile phones, laptops, and other Bluetooth-enabled handheld devices. Content that is engaging, interactive, and informative. The formula works when these wireless devices are relatively close to virtually any public and private spaces that are equipped with Wiremedia’s Bluetooth MediaServer

Consola
Consola is a ‘Bluetooth Proximity Media Server’ application for Mac OS X ‘Tiger’. It detects all Bluetooth enabled devices in range and sends them data such as text, images, animated gifs, audio, flash, video, java, or vCards.

It’s not clear to me if there is some ability to only send content to devices whose owners have granted permission, but assuming that ability is available, I think this presents quite an interesting opportunity for churches to reach out to those in their local area.

Does anyone know more about this technology? I wonder what the range is (which would obviously govern what you might be able to use it for). 

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?

48 million internet users have posted content to the internet and the large majority of them are home broadband users.

So says the latest report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, entitled Home Broadband Adoption 2006.

As more and more people in our society come to expect the ability to contribute to websites they visit, how will the church respond?

How Can We Take Advantage of New Video Ads From Google AdWords?

The internet marketing blogosphere was a bit abuzz yesterday with the news that Google’s AdWords program will soon be adding click-to-play video ads as an option for advertisers who have opted into its content network.

I first learned of this from Darren at ProBlogger.net. At first, I gave more thought to how it could be used by internet marketers working for commercial companies, specifically by the catalog company I work for in my day job. But then Rob challenged churches and ministries to think about how this opportunity could be used to further God’s kingdom.

Video Profiles
My mind must be working slowly these days since I didn’t immediately make a connection between this new opportunity and my preferred web strategy for churches which includes the use of video profiles of believers with specific life experiences or interests. However, Rob’s article prompted me to consider more carefully how the new video ads from Google Adwords could be used effectively in a church’s overall web strategy.

That line of thinking resulted in a proposed strategy in which a church would use short video profiles of members of their congregation to entice unbelievers in their local area to consider the value of a local congregation’s ministry in their own lives. Perhaps an example will be the best way to explain the strategy.