ldsWebguy

I’ve been reading and benefiting from the Internet Retailer magazine. Although I’m not heavy into the Internet retailing business, I find that most of the articles are applicable to managing content sites because they talk about focusing on an audience and providing a focused delivery of products or services to that audience.

You can access it online or order a free subscription to the paper magazine (call 312-362-9532 or go to http://internetretailer.com/renewal).

A test release of the redesigned missionary Web site is now available at beta.mormon.org. The new site includes multimedia and the option for nonmembers to “chat live” with missionaries (Church members should not use the chat feature). While on the beta site, use the feedback option to tell us what you think.

We recently announced a country Web site for the Republic of Ireland. Today we are pleased to announce that a country Web site has been launched for the country of Slovenia. This brings the total number of Church country Web sites to 62.

You can see the complete list of sites at lds.org/countries.

The following is a summary of the general conference materials we now have posted on LDS.org:

Video

• American Sign Language was posted April 11.
• English was posted April 12.
• Spanish coming soon.

Audio

• Divided by speaker is now posted in 11 languages.
• Full session posted in 45 languages, and soon in about 35 more.

Text

• English posted the Thursday following conference.
• 4 languages posted now; 27 more by later this week.
• Braille files will be posted by May 11.

The Church has launched a country site for the Republic of Ireland. This country used to be part of the site for the United Kingdom, but it now has a separate Web site.

In addition to the Church sites maintained at headquarters, 61 country Web sites operate under the direction of Area Presidencies in the language of the countries. Area Presidencies oversee these country Web sites using common guidelines. These sites provide local news, history of the Church in the country, and other information in the local language. These sites are popular and provide a needed presence in many countries.

See the list of all the Church country sites.

In January 2007, we published a redesigned and enhanced Gospel Library on LDS.org, which is a completely new database of XML text with links to associated PDFs, audio files, etc.

The old Gospel Library is still functional, but we are no longer publishing new material to that library. The April 2007 issues of the magazines were the last to be published to that library. The May magazines will only be available in the new library. Within a few months, we will take the old library offline.

If you have links on your sites or blogs to content in the old library, we encourage you to update them to URLs in the new library.

According to several sources, women outnumber men online in the USA. eMarketer claims 51.7% are female, Arbitron and Edison Media Research say 53% of users aged 12+ are female, and comScore Media Metrix claims that 50.6% of users aged 2+ are female.

The only major researchers I can find that claim there are still more men than women online are those that survey only the adult population. MORI Research reports that 73% of adult females go online vs. 79% of adult males. The Pew Internet & American Life Project says that 71% of adult females and 74% of adult males go online.

Hispanic Internet users in the USA consume more media and spend more time with technology than the general US population.

• 90% have cell phones, compared with 79% for the general US population.
• 79% have a digital camera, compared with 53% for the general US population.
• 66% use text messaging, compared with 38% for the general US population.
• 80% have broadband.
• They spend more than half of each day watching TV, listening to the radio and taking in various types of media.

For more information, see eMarketer.

Today’s lead article at eMarketer states that 3/4 of US teen Internet users have streamed digital content online, and the trend is growing rapidly. Right now, a lot of that content is in movie previews, news, amateur video, and music videos. I believe if they had more access to good gospel-centered video, they would watch it a lot.

The Lighted Candle Society will hold its Guardian of the Light Awards Dinner on May 8, 2007. The Most Reverend George H. Niederauer, Archbishop of San Francisco, will give the keynote address at the Little America Hotel in Salt Lake City. Special guests include Mr. Michael Reagan and Ms. Pamela J. Atkinson. This will be a great opportunity to learn more about the fight against pornography.