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7 Years Online, 2 Years Full-Time, What It Looks Like Today

Friday, April 27th, 2012

One of the questions that comes not long after giving a description about MMM and its activities is, “how does it enable you to make a living?” I’m not married, and so that’s an easy question (some months are much harder than others). But, seeing that today is one of those days where I’m engaged with a client -this post, as with many others, has been written at least a week in advance of it posting – I thought it good to talk a bit about how MMM exists beyond the articles published, and what could be coming down the pipe to help things further for all interested parties.

Training and Consulting

MMM is a very low-overhead operation. Much of the output that comes from this endeavor comes as a result of using the mental capacities of me (Antoine, the founder). One of the ways this capacity is leveraged is in training and consulting opportunities.

Training usually happens with small and medium-sized businesses whom are looking to implement a technology or series of technologies to a team or several teams. To that end, I work with a few companies and groups local to NC and PA to be an available trainer for software and the occasional mobile implementation. That has been as simple as BlackBerry training, and as complicated as training project managers to use MS Project for their specific brand of project management processes/workflows.

Consulting is another area that’s used (not as often as I’d like, but hey, that’s the economy for you) to fund things here. Consulting takes place around two core communication technologies – web design/development and Microsoft’s SharePoint product. That’s my background, and given the scope of work that I’ve done in development, administration, and analysis around web and projects, it makes for a suitable engagement point for fundable activities. What that can look like for you can be any number of things – minus building your mobile app for you – as it is a wide and deep set of skills.

At any given point, there may be zero to four companies that I’m engaged with at a time (not including those just talking to to develop the relationship). The bulk of that work is developing the relationships, and (the slow process of) turning that into compensated work. Much of this work is short term (hours to days), and so there’s no need to be present in a cubicle for months on end – the flexibility allows for the consistency of content that you see on the magazine, and the constant pressing forward of skills and knowledge. It does allow for an office that can be nearly anywhere (#todaysoffice), which is its own source of market visibility.

Presenting and Speaking

Another means of bringing in income to fund living comes from presenting and speaking. I will admit that this has probably been the hardest aspect of things because to be recognized as a speaker you have to (a) be seen speaking and (b) have something unique enough to talk about that people will pay you to do it. There aren’t as many opportunities to do this as I’d like – some say its because there’s been no formal book published (!!) – but as things move forward with not only the magazine, but the subject of mobile ministry, there are those opportunities which present themselves.

Unfortunately, some of the hindrances with the presenting and speaking comes of the very wide geographical, theological, and political applications of mobile ministry. I just can’t afford to travel as much as some do, and working on grants and sponsorship takes as much time as living. Don’t get me wrong, there’s opportunities to leverage the technologies of the moment to get to some places (as done with BibleTech in 2011), but that’s not always the case and you miss those connections that should turn into those training, consulting, and speaking engagements when you do. For a recent example, I missed being in on the Mobile Ministry Forum webinar that happened yesterday, because of ork scheduled that was needed to put food on the table. The folks whom are missionaries and constantly going between raising support and not fainting from their ministry work have taught me a ton because of this.

Other Stuff

Beyond these activities, there are actually some friends and family who have been quite generous for some of the living needs. I know that some have gotten tired of my monthly calls for prayer to make sure that I make the budget for the next month (its honestly hard for some of them to understand why I’d ocntinue with MMM rather than get a “regular” job – that whole “calling” thing is not normal language to some). Perhaps things will improve on over time as mobile and ministry are seen to have a more implicit intersection beyond “let’s get that app done.”. I’m not sure. But, that’s just to say that I’m not resting on just getting the four activites described above as the main pieces of the puzzle. I’m always looking for additional avenues where the knowledge and understanding gained from MMM pushes the Body forward, and keeps compensated work flowing.

Truth is, I never wanted to do this with the intention of making a dollar, I just needed an answer to a question that no one was looking to answer… in 2004. Perhaps the value in that is all that should be gained from this for me… What you and those who have written or visited here over the past have gained is another thing – of which I hope has been very valuable to forwarding your understanding of the faith and the technology lens of mobile alongside it.

There is some rumbling towards partnerships with other ministries and companies with whom this venue is a suitable launching pad towards their audiences. Stay tuned for that, or get in touch if that’s something you/your organization might find suitable.

That’s pretty much it. I’ll continue to push along here until something else happens that means that this shift is no longer needed to be pushed from this person/angle. This magazine has been online 7 years (as of a few days ago), with about 3000 articles/posts published, a methodology finalized, and a number of experiments. If this it continues, that means that these and other avenues will present themselves. If not, and this is how it ends, well, I can’t say that I didn’t do my part in seeing search engines as intended. I just hope that when you leave this site, whether you’ve read one or several pieces, that you’ve come away with a perspective to understanding the implications of mobile and technology that puts your best faith forward.

Tags: Antoine RJ Wright, consulting, experiments, financing, partnerships, presentations, SharePoint, speaking, stewardship, tech, training
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The Firehose that is MMM

Tuesday, April 24th, 2012

The other week, we were approached with shuttling some of our content to a mobilized service. That service would basically take the RSS feed and then do some optimizations in order to make it work best for its platform.Well, we’ve got a lot of content here, and one of the items that came back to us was that we’ve got a lot of content and it makes it hard for them to figure out the best way to present our content. That’s a problem, but also speaks to the nature of the content here at MMM, and some of what has been happening behind the scenes to make the experience of reading the most relevant content more possible.

Developing The Firehose

Back when MMM got started online (April 2005), we had a model that was basically a copy of many of the high-traffic websites of the time: publish, publish, publish. I can remember at one point putting up 5-6 pieces a day, and many times unique pieces. For those not knowing what MMM was (amazing how folks stumbled upon us via a simple search), this wasn’t a bad thing. But over time, that got to be a bit much. We went to a single-post-a-day schedule many years back, and for the most part have been able to keep a consistent and constant stream of content flowing.

With that change in frequency came a change in the type of writing. I noticed from the analytics that the longer posts that we made had people stick around a bit longer. And not just to read that post, but they were most likely to go visit someplace else on the site. I shifted into making long-form content, best suited for contemplative reading – rather than quick skimming (other tech sites went this route) – but not to the length of what would be found on many theological sites (dissertations I tell ya). That change was also good for consistency, but a pain in the butt for organization.

The Battle to Organize Content

The move to WordPress from Blogger presented a chance to address some issues in terms of how content was organized on the site. At the time of that move, there were almost 3000 posts published and not quite a half of them were tagged/categorized. Google moved Blogger to a tagging system in the midst of our writing, and – well, its a lot of work to go back and retag content. I did a retaxionomy of the content based around some tighter editorial needs in that move to WordPress, and for the most part, its served us well.

What you might not have noticed is that some of those old posts from Blogger (see, http://archived.mobileministrymagazine.com) have been slowly making their way into WordPress. Unfortunately, the amount of content and structure of content wouldn’t import into WordPress, so each post has to be individually added to WordPress, retagged, and then categorized. That’s just something that will continue to take a while. In the meantime, there’s new content being produced that meets the current organizational schemes, in that long-form method, that’s usually quite unique, and generally posted on a consistent basis.

See the fun?

Steps of Manage the Firehose

Now, you would think that with some background in content management and information architecture that we probably shouldn’t be in this situation – but the fact of the matter is that MMM has changed over the years, as has its audience, as has the content. There are some streams of content not as often posted here anymore (direct software and hardware reviews), and there are others which tend to get much more the light of day (processes and UX matters). Where the content here becomes usable for you is in two offerings – based on the detail of the types of categorizing that happens here:

Search is probably the most important (and most used) functional feature of this resource. Mainly because it is able to not only deal with the content that we’ve organized, but also dig a bit more into what we haven’t organized (thanks Google and WordPress). One of the pieces that is (unfortunately) missing from our mobile website is a suitable search interface (this is present on the alternate mobile website however). Not sure how and when that could be addressed on the mobile site, but its clear – at least from those of you who come here via Internet Explorer/Firefox/Safari that its a needed feature in terms of getting around.

RSS is the quieter feature used to manage the amount of content here. The way its used is actually a crafty by-product of the tags and categorization system present within WordPress. Every category and every tag points to a page that has its own RSS feed. This means, if you are looking at a subject area (perhaps Mobile in Missions/Evangelism for example) and you want to just get the updates for that stream of content only as it is published here, then all you need to do is either click on the RSS (orange colored) button in your URL bar, or take the URL for that page (http://mobileministrymagazine.com/tag/mobile-in-missionsevangelism/) and just add “feed/” to the end of the address and you have just the data stream for that page. Nearly every page has that functionality built in – and I’ve just not done a great job in talking about it.

The Missteps in that Firehose

The problem with things comes on some of our static pages (Bible apps, Case Studies, etc.) of which there is a listing of content, but those items are merely just a listing. There wasn’t a design to that set of data other than just putting it out there, making sure it linked to the right places, and sat under the correct subheading. That’s now biting MMM in the butt. Especially with the Case Studies/Resources page, there’s just an increasingly deep listing of content, and outside of searching on the page (click F3 on your keyboard if you are on a laptop and you can search within any single webpage), you just will have a hard time of finding what you are looking for.

WordPress is a decent content management system. However, making it work for this application (a multi-contextual listing of resources) would be stretching it a bit – even with extensions. The goal for each page is to be available, but to also be easy to manage. Until recently, that’s not been a problem. The query from the mobile services provider poked at that crack in the wall and we’ve got to figure something to do around it.

One of the solutions is to republish every resource and link on those static pages as a posting with their own set of categories/tags, and then build a custom page that would be able to contain those items. For those reading the blog, that’s going to be a lot of content coming through – and while some might be good to see, there are a lot of links to republish there. Another solution is to use the Links feature within WordPress, and then create a series of custom pages that would display those links as organized. Some of the work to do that has been started (in the background), but I’m still not sure what the final result will look like – though it will be a breeze to manage.

How You Can Help

As you can see, we are indeed aware of the amount and level of content that’s published here. Contrary to some opinions, we are quite focused as to what gets published and how it stays relevant to the overall purpose of this magazine. What we don’t know is how you engage the content here? That kind of information would help us better address what comes out of this hose, and how to continue to make sure what comes out is valuable. With that said, a few questions:

Do you use a mobile app to view MMM? If so, which app(s) and why?
Do you use an RSS reader to view MMM (which, why)?
Do you use either the normal or alternate mobile websites?
Do you use the email subscription via Feedburner to read content? If so, how do you archive, organize, resource those emails?

Thanks for your feedback on this. And if you have other ideas on how we can better manage the amount of content that comes here, do feel free to chime in via an article comment, the contact form, or Twitter (@mobileminmag)

Tags: Archived.MobileMinistryMagazine, blog, Blogger, content management, engagement, Mobile in Analytics/Marketing/Development, mobile in development, mobile website, reading, resources, RSS, search, wordpress
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[Experiment] Redesigning MMM

Wednesday, February 1st, 2012

For a number of years now, we’ve been talking about redesigning MMM. This has been a much harder process than I would have thought because of changes in the general organization of site assets, as well as other tasks relating to making a living out of this endeavor. That said, things have been happening on that front and I’m ready to put forward something of a beta to what would/could be a new iteration of MMM.

View the Alternate/Redesigned MMM (for those viewing this on their mobile device, see the note at the bottom of this posting for an additional step to see this)

This is following inline with some of the 2012 resolutions we’ve posted so far (practicing what we preach). This is also an evolution in the philosophy behind MMM in being more than simply a destination towards information, but a collection of those stories presented in a way that accents the use of mobile towards addressing those questions and implications of using mobile in faith-based contexts.

Goals of the Redesign
Of the comments most heard about MMM, one of the loudest has been in the findability of information on the site. Indeed, its an issue. This site has been in existence since 2005 and there’s over 3000 posts full of content. In addition to just having those posts, there’s been several themes that have run throughout the site, making it harder still to simply use a search box to figure a direction to find things. This design seeks to make the entry point to the content better (behind the scenes, content is literally being reorganized to fit a consistent paradigm).

The other goal of this redesign is to reflect the overall user experience (UX) goal we’d have for mobile applications. There are a few mobile applications that we’ve published to date, yet none of them were able to capture exactly the kind of reading, searching, and interactive experience that we’vev been after. After careful consideration of the options (using one or more content management services, developing several native applications, etc.), it was decided that to create a single webpage that had most of the features in a mobile-first role would be the direction. This would be incomplete without redoing the entire WordPress template, so this initial design was completed in order to test the feasability of moving forward.

Issues in This Redesign
Its one thing to go mobile-first, its another to meet each mobile device that comes here with the experience that’s best for their devices. This alternate landing page doesn’t address every mobile device. Its JavaScript-heavy, and has some features which would make some of our lower-end mobile devices, without a proxy-based browser such as Opera Mini, to choke on either the size or the features. Mobify is still being used to streamline the existing WordPress template’s pages for mobile viewing therefore. A complete theme would be mobile friendly (responsive web design methods) and might not need that help to do so.

Performance is also an issue. Thankfully, its a lot better than it was in initial testing (was very happy to get this onto the production server and see signifiant page loading gains). There’s going to be an issue though since there’s a JavaScript interpreter on the page rendering the Articles section, which makes for a potential bottleneck in loading for some browsers/devices. Ideally, a full WordPress template (written in PHP) would be better able to address this.

There are some more niggles. I’ll see more as time goes on. If you spot anything, let us know via Twitter (@mobileminmag). Small items will be fixed. Bigger items will be fixed in that WordPress version.

Resources to Address Issues/Goals
What’s good about this alternate homepage is that it is providing a means to relearn some JavaScript, brush up on HTML5 and its newer abilities, and finally put into practice some lessons about working with content management systems like WordPress which require not only development, but content strategy focuses. The resources to do all of this is widely available online, and is constantly tapped.

There are a number of people/groups in the Body who deal with aspects of building this which will also come in handy along the way. Web app developers, WordPress customizers, etc. have the kinds of collective wisdom that would be utilized to make this happen. If at some point the work goes beyond the time/abilities here, its possible that such a redesign project would be farmed out.

Lastly, there’s you. For those of you visiting the site daily – thank you. You coming to the site, offering feedback, or simply hitting areas (constantly) helps to direct projects like this towards completition. The more you use the site, especially this alternate version, then the better we are able to make a resource that fits your needs.

Implicaitons of This Design
There is a good chance that we will probably stick with a web-app method for delivering content from here on out. That would mean that building and maintaining apps which also publish this site’s content would only be done as a means to explore the workings of content mangement systems and publishing experiences, rather than anything strategic towards pushing this site forward.

Another, probably more jarring, implication to this design is that we would be (finally) going back to our roots in respect to being mobile-first in everything. This could mean shorter articles, but definitely means more flexibility and versatility in the data streams that make up MMM. For example, we have a “tab” which has a link to all the places we conduct conversations online. Such an item could easily become a single page stream and RSS/XML feed for those who would rather find content in those methods.

The design is using features of CSS and HTML which are more advanced. Based on some of the stats we can gather form those visiting MMM, those features are supported by those visits. However, that’s not a 100% solution. We would like to be as close to 100% mobile compliant, and not at all desktop browser compliant. We’d like to drive the desktop browser experience to primarly search and RSS versus casual browsing.

We are also going to slowly start making the shift towards getting away from email for non-collaborative tasks, and use Twitter as a means to not just be poked about items, but also conduct the initial parts of conversations. Until we do something a but broader federated (identi.ca and/or XMPP-based stuff from our server), that would help us to best triage communications and move quickly towards managing opportunities in this space.

Or you can look at it in this simple statement: we are going even more mobile and virtual and dragging you along for the ride

What’s Left?
Using it, finishing the WordPress custom theme conversion, making mobile apps match its UX… ya know, the normal

Just go to http://mobileministrymagazine.com/m.html and have a go at it.

Note for Those Coming from The Mobile Site
If you are reading this from the mobile site, then on clicking this link, you will have to click the link that says Full Site on that page. That’s simply because of how links from our use of Mobify behave.

Tags: experiments, HTML5, JavaScript, jQuery, jQuery Mobile, Mobile in Analytics/Marketing/Development, mobile in development, projects, RSS, UI, UX
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Church Tech Today’s 6 Great Church Tech Blogs, MMM Refresher

Wednesday, January 25th, 2012

Church Tech Today that we were included with five (5) other websites named as great resources in terms of church tech blogs. What’s really nice about this listing is that it covers almost all aspects of IT as it relates to the church (local, global, mobile, social media, services, etc.). Its really a great listing, and a few of these sites we’ve profiled here before:

PastorGear
Church Tech Matters
Church Mag
Church Techy
Church Tech Arts
MMM

We’d encourage you to check out all of the sites notes on the Church Tech Today post, and be sure to leave a comment there towards other resources you might know of and use online. There’s definitely a body of things happening that’s worth keeping track of.

A Refresher About MMM
Given that inclusion on the list, and some good trends happening lately towards an increasing number of visitors, this is also a good opportunity to give a quick refresher as to what MMM is and what are some of the things you can find here.

First, this is who we are:

Mobile Ministry Magazine (MMM) is online magazine asking questions, presenting approaches, and experimenting around stories related to the implications of faith and mobile technologies.

There’s more on our about page including the history, notes about where we’ve been, and how MMM fits into this picture of faith and technology.

We’ve got (probably) the most comprehensive listing of Bible and religious apps, a listing of mobile web and application services for buiding your own products, and a page full of cases studies, resources, and metrics towards web and mobile tech. Beyond those items, we keep a pretty updated media page which has our issues, presentations, and experiments and another which is simply a tag cloud of all of the tags we’ve used on articles.

In terms of keeping track with MMM, there’s this website, our mobile website, a Twitter account (@mobileminmag), an RSS feed, and even an ability to get posts emailed to you via Feedburner. While we do have a few apps, these are regarded as experiments moreso than primary engagements (or content model doesn’t fit within the need for a native app), though we tend to do a number of these just to check out mobile platforms and the content management systems which bolster their use.

Its a bit much. But, its done so that you have something to build on when you want to learn more about, or advance your ministry/organization towards mobile practicies which are more respective of your faith/ethics questions than some others. If we are missing something, or you’ve got something you’d like to add, let us know. Or, like with the Church Tech Today post, just add us on your website so that others can take advantage of anything good here you’ve found, and then we’ll find you and make a reason for the Body to come together (John 17:20-27).

Tags: admin, Church Tech Today, MMM
Posted in Commentary, Site News, Social Engagement | No Comments »

MobMin.Info

Tuesday, January 17th, 2012

Not sure when the idea hit (I’d need to look back at notes and such). But, at one point during 2011, during one of the many calls had with several members of the Mobile Ministry Forum (MMF), I got the idea to just make a small website that had essentially all of the information points that the MMF aims for, but also serves as an example of a non-app approach to being an information point. The resulting actvity is simply named MobMin.Info (http://mobmin.info).

A Portal and A Reference
MobMin.Info is simply a portal page pointing to much of the resources and research that’s been done to date in the area of mobile ministry.

The URL was grabbed as a result of conversations around the #mobmin Twitter search term and the search tendencies of those looking for information about mobile ministry.

Structure
MobMin.Info is a single-page website (11K) site broken into separate sections:

Websites
Case Studies/Research
Bible Apps
Dev & Services
Articles, News, and Discussions
About the Mobile Ministry Forum

Each section simply links to the content from sites already involved in the Mobile Ministry Forum.

It is designed using HTML5 (Modernizr template) along with jQuery. It was completely developed on an iPad using Textastic.

Why Is This Relevant
One of the issues that some have had with the MMF is that it is quite difficult to find what information is out there for mobile ministry. There’s been a good bit published, and much of it is and isn’t quite in a format that some have needed for it to be in order for it to be actionable. A single destination that points to clearly defined resources is much more actionable.

The other reason for doing this is that Mobile Ministry Magazine is in dire need of a redesign itself. In the process of cleaning up information structures on the backend for an eventual redesign, it just made sense to take some of what we’d done so far and make that available, along with others in the mobile ministry space who have been steadily putting out content and resources. Given that our brand is quite strong, and the Mobile Ministry Forum is so closely aligned in both brand activity and name, it made sense to just go ahead and make this. The redesign for this site will follow a format more along the lines of existing content and the (hopefully this year) pending release of a mobile ministry methodology.

Sharing, Feedback, Future Directions
Ideally, MobMin.Info would be what you’d put into your mobile device’s browser and leave it there as a favorite/bookmark. Anything that’s happening in this mobile ministry space, that’s being referenced in this space, should be accessible from this URL. So, use it as a primary link or just as the one you have to share what happens in mobile ministry if someone where asking you what this is all about.

Your feedback is welcome, but aside from adding additional content streams from MMF members, there’s not too much that’s going to happen to this design (for example, its not getting published in an app store, its not getting a PC or tablet-optimized view, etc.). Not that your feedback isn’t worth it, but this is something that would be best served if MobMin.Info were sitting outside of the brand/authority of Mobile Ministry Magazine. Feel free to leave your comment here, or to post it at the Mobile Ministry Forum discussion board.

Future directions:

Handover of the MobMin.Info site and domain to the MMF
Possible change of this into a WordPress (or other CMS) template
Added offline capacity (its almost there, its made using HTML5)

Ok folks, so no excuses for not having something in your head regarding how to find information about mobile ministry. Add MobMin.Info to your (portable) resources.

Tags: definition of mobile ministry, experiments, HTML5, MMF, Mobile in Analytics/Marketing/Development, mobile in development, mobile in personal/moment, mobile ministry, Mobile Ministry Forum, mobile websites, web apps
Posted in Communication, Site News, Social Engagement | No Comments »

7 Years of Moments

Monday, April 25th, 2011

There was just a small mention on Twitter some days ago. I honestly don’t know how to make this seem like a bigger moment. In some ways, its not. MMM has been very plain and simple from day one. And here, at year number 7, I’m looking back wondering if I’ve done well with the Master’s investment. To be honest, I’m not sure that I have.

That’s not to say that there hasn’t been moments. Creating a platform for “Chrsit in mobile” is intriguing enough to garner a small audience. That was not the focus of this initiative. Those who have supported and pushed because they agreed with the line of questioning have made it possible to get this far. And as far as I know, there are few people still arond from those early days. Psychologically, I’m grateful for people like LaRosa and Sammy – they’ve really been in my corner from the beginning, and I’d given up a number of times if it wasn’t for ears or surprise words from them.

Its been hard, I can tell you that much. What were you doing with mobile and ministry 7 years ago? Exactly. And its not like it didn’t make sense to some. But, it didn’t. And I didn’t fight hard enough to make it make sense. I was honestly just trying to get an answer for myself…

…and stay mindful of the door of escape that God provided for me too many times.

There have been moments. Moments where I was literally steps from giving this up because there was no comments for months on end. No contributions from people who said they would. Because I was tired, and I needed to make a living, not put time and energy into something that I could honestly say – it would be impossible for me to know the extent of its effect… mobile ministry is and always will be bigger than me.

And, man, there have been smiles and tears. That series by Pat, the rescued message from the spam folder that became the BBC interview, the requests to speak to classes and people who were/are well ahead of me professionally and vocationally. I can’t even try to playback all of that, and yet its in here – in every post, every tweet, every started (and failed) initiative. For seven years, this site, this “ministry” has been an anchor like no other for me. For mobile, I’m not really sure. There are moments, but I still don’t know that its understood.

Can you tell I’m a bit tired. I don’t know how you married folks do it. I’ve been wedded to MMM, and can’t see myself without it and can’t stand it all at the same time. I’ve seen other sites come and go. I’ve seen other ministry sites come and go – and each one that left took some life out of me. This site, for better and worse, has stood. I’m so grateful for Damond and Lance for the servers.

I imagine that everyone gets to this point. That moment in their life where they make a genuine assessment of whether it was worth it, whether it matters to keep going or not. I’m there often – definitley more often since trying to do this full-time. I can see the implications of not doing this so clearly, and the areas of my life that have suffered becasue I’ve been so adamant about keeping to this land I’ve been given. For seven years… over 2300 posts. That’s a lot of tilling.

I truly hope that MMM, in all of its tweaks, character flaws, initiatives started/failed/started-again has been able to alert you to the reality of mobile, and a Christian perspective on an opportunity to meet people where computer technology (more than ever) intersects with their life. That intersection can be simply accountability for a single parent whose in school, or for a religious leader who needs to know that the pulpit isn’t a sheid for his frailties. We’ve got to meet people where they are, bring the church/Body of Christ to them and minister justice, mercy, and grace. We can’t be ignorant of the abilities and responsibilities of this tech, nor should we elevate it to be bigger than it is.

I didn’t plan on going this far with MMM. I just wanted to know what the Body is doing with faith and mobile technology. Seven years later I’m still looking, still asking questions, still throwing things against the wall, hoping that something makes sense, something moves us towards serving Christ and one another.

Sending and receiving Christ in mobile. That’s where we stand 7 years in. From this point, maybe it sounds less like ‘a’ voice, and more like ‘the voice of an entire generation.’

Posted in Events, Site News | 1 Comment »

What’s Ahead for 2011

Monday, January 3rd, 2011

2010 was one amazing, hectic, and transforming year. In respect to mobile, the world seems to have begun hitting a stride seeing mobile as something more than a flash in the pan. That’s always been the view from MMM. Mobile intersects with digital faith behaviors, and enables us to send and receive a lens of faith that’s a bit different, a bit fresher. Chances are, in 2011, you’ll refine some behaviors and push a bit more. How could that look in 2011? Let’s take a look first at mobile, then at what’s in store for MMM.

A Mobile Lens for 2011

Mobile will continue to push towards the front of technology, health, educational, and policy conversations in 2011. What will be most interesting is the overlap. As we talked about some last year, contextualization and cross-functional knowledge will play a bigger part in understanding the role of mobile and the impacts to digital faith behaviors. Those individuals and groups that pollinate their mobile perspectives with multiple arenas will remain ahead of trends and applications.

In hardware, we are still looking at more of the same from basic devices (slates, candybar, tablet, some clamshells). Storage and processor technology is again on the verge of stepping up a generation, but battery power isn’t. We should see a few more attempts with device and network intelligence on devices, but only at the highest model ranges. Look at what you see as high-end right now, it will be low/mid-range by the fall.

Price points for devices will come down to orughly $100USD for a smartphone sans contract (currently $130-150). This will continue the transformation of some (mobile savvy) developed markets towards being largely populated with new smartphones. That said, feature phones will continue to sell huge in most markets – and the 2nd owner market should also grow. Service prices will hold steady for a bit longer before we start seeing more tiers in data service offerings with larger carriers. Keep an eye on SIM cards, these might be changing – and not just in size.

Software will continue to go the route of paying attention to user experience and smoother user interface design, though we will get some attention paid to optimization and information security. I wish I could say that users will care about security, but situations such as WikiLeaks shows us that this will remain governmental and enterprise conversations.

Looks like we are on the verge of some jumps in the amount and attention paid to audio and multi-lingual approaches. However, the easiest paths for developing these solutions will continue to be with web-dependent data and transaction services.

Open source will continue as an area of opportunity and frequent barrier in software and business development. Religious content is one of the heaviest areas where DRM and antiquated processes remain, and so the change here to more fluid models is still some time off. We will see more attempts like the Kiosk Evangelism Project and The Evangelical Exegetical Commentary that will push some open source behaviors forward – the catch being with regional and legal issues which don’t change so quickly.

Mobile applications will continue to dominate the conversation in smartphone-heavy markets. Mobile web will pick up steam after Q1 and newer devices will further blurr the line between web and native applications. Would be nice to see a bible software company lead in this area – Logos’s Biblia was a great stepping stone to this.

We will see people more empowered with mobile to create their own solutions through more app-wizard-like programs and processes. I’m not sure if it will come from the faith-based space or outside, but I can see a few groups doing more with mashup-technologies that empower individuals to create solutions, instead of waiting for a larger network to be the solution.

MMM in 2011

With 3/4 a year under the belt as MMM as Antoine’s primary focus – and the addition of two voices for regional and development interests, there’s been a lot of learning and pushing taking place. Here’s some of what you can expect from in 2011.

Reorganizing the Mobile Bibles page
More development of the mobile ministry definition and its applicable areas
Adding additional contributors, with a goal of 1-2 primary contributors from outside our majority US/UK audience*
Creating more opportunities for speaking/consulting engagements for our primary contributors
Structuring a mobile ministry course offering around the Digital Disciples effort
Redesigning the site

If you will, all of this is simply building on the core so that the depth of content hits on as many applications of mobile and digital faith explorations as possible.

2011 aims to be filled with a lot more sending and receiving of Christ in mobile and we invite you to be a part of the signal. Connect with MMM and let’s continue to enable the Body to see the intersection of faith and mobile technology.

*If you are interested in being a contributor to MMM, make your request known via the Contact Form. Include links to sample writing pieces, up to three (3) areas of focus/interest, and how often you’d be contributing by writing. Those who can write in a language besides English are heavily preferred, though all applicants are equally considered.

Tags: Biblia, developed markets, developing markets, DRM, international, mobile applications, mobile ministry certification, mobile web, mobility, open source, price, SIM, smartphone, tech, Wikileaks
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MMM Top 10 Topics of 2010

Thursday, December 30th, 2010

Yesterday, we hit on the top posts of 2010. Today, we look at the top 10 topics based on frequency of use here at MMM. In one respect, this gives you an idea of how we focus on various areas, and in another respect points to areas of interest and notable subject areas throughout 2010.

#10: SMS
Makes a lot of sense that SMS would be a popular topic. Its how it was a popular topic that becomes interesting as you see the various types of posts on the topic.

#9: Software
The software industry is constantly changing, and this year in mobile has been no exception. Lots of viewpoints here from applicaitons to developer relations.

#8: Social Networking
What comes first, going social or going mobile? Hard to tell sometimes with the amount of conversations around both.

#7: Bible
It strikes me as amazing how the Bible stays in the conversation no matter if we are talking reading, communities, software, or successes in this space.

#6: Communication
As with social networking, simply communicating tends to be a common meme within mobile. Lots of potential here for more work.

#5: Education
We’ve been intentional at look at education as a part of the fabric of being mobile, and this year’s posts have fought hard towards that fact. Look for much more in this space in 2011.

#4: Tech
Technology is a term that be be denoted to any tool. Effective technology – especially in this space – is another conversation. We’ve had several of these.

#3: Resources
MMM also serves as a springboard towards research and reosurces in the mobile ministry space. As with education, this is a topic that’s bound to rise higher in 2011.

#2: Community
How does the tech and resources filter into the local community of believers? Plenty of coverage around community engagements such as Lausanne, discipliship, and more.

#1: Mobility
It would almost be obvious to say that mobile would be at the top of the list. Mobility is not just the tools, but the processes, the policies, and the implications. Next year, we might default this one out of the list.

Those areas accounted for lots of coverage here. We are expecting this list to shift a good bit in 2011. What do you think might be some of the topics that would make this list next year here at MMM? Speak up in the comments or on Twitter (@mobileminmag).

Tags: Bible, Communication, community, education, mobility, resources, SMS, social networking, software, tech
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MMM Top 10 Posts of 2010

Wednesday, December 29th, 2010

Being the end of the calendar year 2010, we thought it a good idea to take a look back at some of the top posts from this year. Here are the top 10 posts which have generated attention and conversations this year.

#10: Agapage – Internal Church/Org Paging
Proving that there’s still room in mobile for past solutions, Agapage’s church/org paging product showed some of the more innovative tools to come into the mobile space for local church communities this year.

#9: How I’m Using My iPad
It took MMM a while to jump on the iPad bandwagon, but when we did, the response here and on Twitter took off.

#8: Book Review – Thin Places by Chip Furr
A brother who has become a consistant supporter of MMM, his book review here has been a common visit not only for its content, but for its impact.

#7: More Accountability Software
An area that’s getting more and more attention as people are going mobile. How do we take steps to be accountable in such a personal domain?

#6: What is Mobile Ministry?
This year, putting forth a definition of mobile ministry. Next year, well, you’ll have to walk with us and others to see what happens there.

#5: Mike Milton’s Lessons from the 2010 Lausanne Conference
One of the largest gatherings of believers from all over the world in the last three decades. Lausanne presented an opportunity to see and learn from the world’s Christian faith community.

#4: The Evangelical Exegetical Commentary As a Sign of Publishing’s Future
We talk a lot about trends here, and this post highlighting the Evangelical Exegetical Commentary seemed to strike a nerve with many of you. Lots more changes like this to occur in this space.

#3: The Future of Bible Software
Similar to the previous item, talking about something that’s been near and dear to digital faith causes some ripples. This post has constantly ranked high in terms of views since it was published.

#2: Compairson Thoughts on iPad and Bible Study Apps
Showing some of the attention that the iPad has garnered, this post not only strokes the aspect of what applications to use but also how we go about studying.

#1: Bibles for Mobile Devices
The best (hey, we’re biased) listing of free, paid, and open source Bible software for mobile devices. This list has seen several updates this year and points to one very obvious entry point for digitial faith initiatives.

That’s our top 10, what about you? What posts or topics from MMM in 2010 have most impacted you? Speak up in the comments or on Twitter (@mobileminmag).

Tags: 2010, accountability, Agapage, apps, bible software, bibles, Chip Furr, iPad, Lausanne Global Congress, mike milton, mobile accountability software, paging, SMS, The Future of Bibles Report, the future of publishing, Thin Places, top 10, Twitter
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Share the Bible, Enjoy Christmas and Take a Sabbath

Wednesday, December 22nd, 2010

A few notes before the holiday pause:

On December 25th, YouVersion (and others) will be engaging in a Global Share the Bible Day. MMM supports this effort and asks that as you do enjoy any gifts, that you also take the time to share the Word with your friends/family – or if you’ve missed keeping to that reading plan, that you reengage yourself to the Word and the present-gift that it is.

In the same wise, I’d like to encourage you all to enjoy the holiday weekend with one another. And even if you aren’t able to spend it with the people you want to, that you would at least take an effort to rest your spirit, and reflect on the gift of the present. Each day is meant to be unwrapped and enjoyed as a gift from God. Take your gift, each gift, and enjoy the day you have been given.

Melissa, Brett, LJ, and myself will be taking time away to rest; and next week we’ll be back with the usual posting schedule. So that means no updates here, on Twitter, Google Buzz, or in the MMM Nokia App. Email will be looked at on occasion, but this is really a break that’s needed to refresh and retune for the new year.

Thank you as always for your support, and may this Christmas and holiday season be full of joy, peace, and the occasional new gadget. See you next week.

Tags: Bible, bible software, bibles, Christmas, community, Global Share the Bible Day, mobile applications, reading, Sabbath, sharing, YouVersion
Posted in Events, Site News, Social Engagement | No Comments »