If you are a GMail user, you most likely have seen a new little icon pop up on your menu bar for “Buzz” – or perhaps logged on and got a pop up message about setting up “Buzz”.

So what is Google Buzz exactly and how is it supposed to improve my life? Is it the same as “wave” or something entirely different? Many friends asked, “So is this like “Facebook News-feed” in Gmail?”

Well, the answer to all of those is yes and no.

Buzz is essentially both a “micro-blogging” and “chat” tool all in one. You can post news and updates to buzz just like Twitter or Facebook, or you can post your thought for the day, pictures, videos, links, etc. It is entirely up to you. You can make your posts public or private and even set up private groups to have a threaded conversation. Buzz can pull in updates from other social networking sites like Twitter, YouTube, and Picasa. It also will automatically share your “shared items” from Google Reader.

Google still has work to do

While Google is obviously doing its best to compete with services like Twitter and Facebook, it has a long way to go before Buzz will be much of a comparable option. Personally I am not sure how much time I have for yet another service to help me social network. I already use Google Chat, Facebook, and Twitter, plus run three websites and co-manage another. How do you find time to have real conversations when trying to manage all of these virtual ones?

Buzz has its place

I do think it will find its place in my life and probably many others. I can already see how it would be beneficial when working with a team on a project. To set up a private conversation that can continue in nested form, would be very helpful. For youth ministers, I could see this being a great tool in communicating with your core team members. I could also see this as being well utilized in communicating amongst staff members.

Open Up!

One thing that Google did not do with Buzz that would make me more likely to use it is to make it more open. As this PC World article points out, it is “open except for when its not.” An open social networking platform is one that allows you to post to other platforms simultaneously. For instance, when I post to Twitter, I can set it up to post directly to my Facebook account at the same time. I can also set Facebook to do the same thing in posting to twitter or other platforms. With Google Buzz, you can’t do that. You can however, post a note to Twitter and it will appear in Google, as well as post a video to YouTube or pictures to Picasa and those will also post to Buzz. Why Google didn’t set it up to go the other way is beyond me. I can only hope that they are moving in that direction.

Buzz operates within Gmail, which is good if you’re like me and your entire life (email, calendar, documents, reader, etc.) is run through Google applications. It makes chatting or commenting on posts that much easier. However, what is not good about that is that you can’t invite non-gmailers into that conversation and since it isn’t an open platform it will not be shared in other social networks.

Other Concerns

A few other sites and bloggers have also raised several privacy concerns. For one, while Google claims you can set your status to be private or public, having a private status essentially means you can’t be a part of any conversations. So, if you are set up as “private” and your friend posts something that is listed as “public” then you will not be able to comment without making your status public. Melissa Wiley has raised some very valid concerns regarding this set up for parents. You can read more about that here. You can find some guidance for setting up privacy settings at MSNBC.

In the end I think Google will figure this all out and find its way into all of our lives with yet another tool. But, they have a long way to go. I’d love to hear how you decide to utilize Buzz and even your initial thoughts. You can post your comments below.

Questions to ponder:

What are some good uses for Buzz that you see down the road?

Can you see this being a valuable tool for ministry?

What concerns would you have about using buzz for ministry (especially with youth)?

Do you plan to use buzz?

Related posts:

1. Guest Post: Why New Media Will Make You Holier
2. Gain Reader Suggestions: Use Skribit
3. Why Should I Invest Time and Money?

Some of you out there may be avid bible readers, others may casually browse it, and some of you might be so intimidated that you haven’t started because you just don’t know where to begin. If you fall into one of these categories, I want to introduce you today to a really cool new tool to help you, no matter which category you’re in – YouVersion. There are a variety of ways to go about reading the Bible, and YouVersion.com offers 21 plans to choose from in order to help you. You can read the Bible through chronologically, a combination of Old and New Testament readings each day, or a variety of other methods.

I also think YouVersion represents the future of online Bible apps in the sense that it involves and encourages community interaction. As you study, you can make notes and share them with others in a social networking feature they include on the site. But the coolest part of the site is that they have spent a lot of time developing versions to all you to access YouVersion on your iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, Java, and/or Mobile Web.

I came across YouVersion recently and here is how simple it is for me to read it on my iPhone:

So I invite you to check out YouVersion.com. I’m sure you’re going to enjoy it.

Related posts:

1. Handle Information Overload: Diigo
2. Connect through Text: Part I

I have been in ministry for twelve years now. Most of that time has been spent working in parish youth ministry. One of the best things about parish ministry is the long term investment in people’s lives. Getting to know not only teens, but families and watching them grow. It is amazing how time and presence can lead to some incredibly life-giving relationships. I still am in touch with so many of these teens and families from over the years, and while I wish I would have been a little better at keeping in touch with more of those beautiful people that I’ve encountered I am ever grateful for those who I have been able to keep in touch with.

As a Catholic speaker it is very different. You go into a parish or event, you spend a couple hours, or maybe a day or two with a community and hopefully inspire and enliven their community. Then, you leave. Sometimes you come back, but most times you don’t.  I often felt a bit of guilt going into a community and then leaving with no way of keeping in communication. I would leave a community and feel a longing to keep in touch, to leave behind something to help them continue the journey. Some communities didn’t need that because they had vibrant ministries going on to serve the people, they just needed a little spark or spiritual boost. For some communities, they didn’t have much going on in the way of active ministry for teens or adults. Often, this was the only retreat they got. I often wondered about the teens and adults that I would meet at these events, those who came forward for prayer or wrote to me later. I often wondered how they were, where they were, and if they were still on the journey.

Entering the New Media Age

A year ago I realized that I was missing out on some incredible opportunities to minister and write (which is a long time passion of mine) through a blog. At the time I had no clue how or if it would go anywhere or if anyone would actually read my blog. I wrote a few articles here and there and enjoyed the new found medium. My traffic was of course extremely low but I was finally writing on a semi-regular basis which is something I had wanted to do for some time.

Shortly after beginning to blog I learned more about Twitter and began to utilize it. Within two weeks I was connected with a couple hundred like minded people and my blog traffic began to jump. Aside from the little ego boost that came with a blog with regular followers, the most amazing thing was how I came to see that this new found ministry was helping people and that I was able to minister to people I had never even met before. Through emails I received, direct messages via Twitter and comments on my blog people were reaching out for help, for guidance, and mostly for prayer.

Finally I was doing what I had longed for when I was traveling and speaking – I was building relationships with God’s people even if they didn’t attend my church or live in my area.

The Digital Evangelist

I realized about six months into this “digital ministry” how much impact one could have just by sharing their faith on what Pope Benedict has termed, the “digital continent”. I would post a note on Facebook with one of my blogs, or a recorded talk and I would get an email a few days later from an old high school friend sharing about where they are or thanking me for my faith, or asking me a faith question. I would write a post or post a note on twitter and get a heartfelt response from a person two thousand miles away who said it was exactly what they needed in that moment.

Recently after reading Pope Benedict’s message for World Communications Day which is May 16th, I realized what we who do this “online ministry” are, we are “Digital Evangelists”. We are like St. Paul, Timothy, Titus, Fr. Keno, and countless thousands of missionaries and evangelists who walked this earth to spread the message of the gospel. Only we don’t walk. We tweet, we blog, we Facebook, we chat, we Skype, we podcast, we Ustream, we text, we youtube, we webcast, and the list goes on.

In his message for World Communications Day, Pope Benedict writes, “Priests (and laypeople) are thus challenged to proclaim the Gospel by employing the latest generation of audiovisual resources (images, videos, animated features, blogs, websites) which, alongside traditional means, can open up broad new vistas for dialogue, evangelization and catechesis.”

A couple of weeks ago we posted an article by Todd Lemieux, titled “Why New Media Will Make You Holier”, in which Todd points out that the new or digital media can make you Holier because it offers so many opportunities for information, community, support, encouragement, accountability, and more. Todd is absolutely correct, the new media has provided a whole new opportunity for people to connect with the Truth.

The Problem is that there still is a lot of noise out there. In fact, there is probably one hundred times more noise and false truths available online then real truth.

That’s why the Church needs to rise up and evangelize this “digital continent”. If you are in ministry, or you feel called to ministry and you are not currently involved in “digital evangelization”, then start praying about how God might use you for this great work. This work will not replace the face to face, life-long evangelization that is already going on, but it is needed to supplement it.

We need to rise up and, as Pope Benedict put it, “give a soul” to the “digital continent.”

Stay tuned over the next two weeks as I break open how to be a “digital evangelist”. I would love your ideas and feedback on how you have “walked this digital continent” as well. You can leave comments here or email me.

Related posts:

1. In the Year 2000… Ministry in the New Media Age
2. Learning How to Communicate Your Message In a Very Loud World
3. Why Should I Invest Time and Money?

I need some background on YOU (the readers) so that I can keep my blogs relevant (forgive me if I’ve been focusing on ideas/topics that are not)!

A couple questions:

1. What programs do you use to design your fliers/info cards/retreat shirts/etc.?
2. What topics are important to you?
3. Where do you need the most help in the design process? Picking fonts? Layout? Color choices?
4. Anything else? Just let me know!

I appreciate any and all feedback.

Chat with you soon!

Related posts:

1. The Youth Group Shirt
2. New Color Trends to Watch
3. A Picture – err, Design… Really is Worth a Thousand Words

Here’s an excerpt from that article:

Utilizing Texting for Ministry

So, as a person involved in ministry at the parish level, or even on a national level – how do you take advantage of this technology and leverage it to help as you evangelize those in your ministry?

Streamline using a service

If you want to get serious about communicating effectively with people involved in your ministry then you need to look at options that will help you be efficient. There are numerous options out there for “text messaging services” or “broadcast SMS services”. These are online services that you can subscribe to to send out your text messages to groups – whether its ten people or 10,000 people all at one time. This is by far the best way to maximize your reach and streamline your messaging.

What we recommend

As I mentioned in that post I have tried out a few of the services available for “group SMS”, or “broadcast text” and I have found what I think is the best bang for the buck.

It is a small company based out of Seattle called, Tatango, run by CEO Derek Johnson, who is more connected to his customers than any CEO I’ve ever heard of.  So far I have found Tatango to be a clean, efficient and easy service and to be honest they have proven to have one of the best customer service approaches I have ever seen.

True SMS to SMS

One of the major benefits of Tatango is that it is a true SMS to SMS service. Many other services out there use an email to SMS platform which creates problems in that many messages will not get to the contact and according one source could be violating certain carriers terms of service. Utilizing a true SMS platform means your contacts will get their text and it can reply to that text which will then go straight to your phone.

Get Started for Free

Tatango is a very user friendly and clean customer interface and makes it easy to set up and use. You can set up your own Tatango account in about 2 minutes flat and there is even a “try it for free” option which allows you a 30-Day trial.

Tatango is a monthly pay as you go service too, so lets say you pay for it for one month and realize you just don’t use it enough – no harm, no foul. Simply cancel at anytime. Or, let’s say you just need it for a specific purpose – like perhaps you have a major event coming up or you want to offer a “lent devotional text message” to your blog subscribers and you only need it for that time frame, simple – sign up, and cancel when you’re done.

Create Groups

Once you have set up your account you will be prompted to create a group. You can create as many groups as you’d like. Let’s say you are a youth minister and you want a group for middle school, for high school, and for parents. It’s as simple as clicking the “create group” icon and putting a group name in. Be sure to keep your group name short as that will take up some of your 160 characters in each Text message. Or, let’s say you want to use this service for several ministries in your parish, you can simply set up a group for each ministry that will use the service and assign people as the group contact.

NOTE: It is important that your group name is something that is identifiable by your contacts as this is what identifies who is sending the message and you want them to not assume that this is a junk text. So pick a name that they will recognize.

Each group you set up will get it’s own keyword that people can use to register for your text’s, but you also can set up specific keywords for your groups (see more on this below).

Adding Contacts is Easy

Once you’ve created your group you’re now ready to add your contacts so that you can begin sending messages. There are three ways to do this.

Using the Import Tool

The import tool allows you to manually enter contacts. If you have your group already set up in a spreadsheet or other database, you can also simply copy their information and enter it. What I did was to put the name of the person and the cell phone number right next to each other in a spreadsheet and then copied the columns and pasted them right into the import box, it was as simple as that. You will be give a prompt asking you to ensure that you obtained this information legally and also a chance to confirm the information before it is saved.  (The import tool is not available in the free-trial version.)

Keyword Sign-Up

The most attractive piece of the group SMS service is the opportunity to set up a custom “keyword” that your contacts can use to sign up for text updates from you. Depending on which plan you purchase – you will have a certain number of customizable keywords. This is in addition to the generic keyword that you get for free with each group. You will want to pick keywords that are easy to remember and to let people know. We made our keywords, “LIFETEEN” for our high school Life Teen group, and LEOEDGE for our middle school EDGE group. Then you simply give your teens the number to text “68398″ is our number and have them text your keyword. This automatically subscribes them to your messages.

IDEA: One of the things I like best about this feature is the ability to run little contests to get them to sign up. So to kick off our EDGE group and get the kids signed up, at the beginning of a night I said, text LEOEDGE to 68398 to win a gift card (or cd, you name the prize). Then I go to my office during the night, look at the numbers that registered and pick one at random. That kid wins.

You also can post this keyword info in your parish bulletin to let people know how to get information, which is a great way to reach people who perhaps have not gotten involved quite yet.

Web Link

You will also have the option of embedding a logo on your webpage that invites people to join your group, or you can paste the URL link into emails or web posts that invites people to sign up. This feature is a great one because it allows people to not only register their info, but actually gives them a chance to enter their name – which the keyword feature does not allow.

I have added this link to all of my outgoing email blasts as well.

Manage your group easily

Once you have some contacts uploaded you are ready to begin sending our information, inspiration, or whatever you desire to use this service for. In the ‘Overview’ Section of your group page you’ll be able to see your subscribers and who joined or left the group, etc. You can then click on contacts to see more detailed info and even to send a text to one individual.

You are also able to create subgroups within each group. For instance if you have teens that are in a leadership role or a bible study group within the larger group, you could set that up as a sub-group which would allow for an easy communication tool with your group.

Start Sending

Sending your message is very easy. Simply click, ’send message’, enter your text, and click send. You are limited to 160 characters (including your group name) when sending group SMS, and the send tool will show you how much room you have left.

There is also a feature to send a message directly from your phone. “Send your group message to the phone number provided by Tatango, starting the body of the message with the # symbol.  Have more then one group? Follow the instructions above and Tatango will send you a message prompting you to select which group you would like to send your message to.”

It is such a simple process and so easy that I don’t know why I wasn’t using group SMS in my ministry much sooner! It is so easy now to get the word out about a last minute event or a schedule change or cancellation.

Great Customer Support

Tatango does a great job with customer support. CEO, Derek Johnson recently revamped the department, hiring a community manager who has the duty of connecting with every single one of their groups and responding to all customer needs quickly. They are quick to respond and very attentive to your needs.

In fact just last week I was getting a failure error on the site repeatedly, the error message said they were aware of the problem, but just to be sure I sent a support ticket. I had a response within five minutes telling me that the engineer was working on the problem and it would be back up soon. I also noticed a post from the CEO on twitter that night, “it’s 11pm and everyone is still at work.” They made sure the issue was dealt with before they could go home.

If you don’t believe me, send them a message. You will be given not only a phone number to reach them at but the cell phone of the person you are in contact with. In fact, even the CEO of the company will give you his cell phone number.

Pricing

Tatango offers four different pricing structures, which will allow you to enter a cost you can afford and of course you can easily upgrade as you feel like your need grows. We started with the basic plan and have upgraded to expand our use to other areas.

We are excited that Tatango has offered NewMediaMinistry.com a very special discount code to share with our readers. Click here to take advantage of a 25% off coupon – this is only good for the next 30 days so hurry! The coupon code is: L84V3QKK – you can enter it at check out.

We hope you’ll give group SMS a try. We obviously like Tatango a lot, but if you find another option that fits your needs better, by all means give it a try and let us know how it works for you.

Oh, and don’t forget to join our NewMedia SMS Group by texting “NEWMEDIA” to 68398. We’ll be sending out special announcements, and invitations to special online events like our upcoming Ustream broadcast.

Related posts:

1. Connect through Text: Part I
2. Creating Hype for Your Ministry
3. Raise Money via Texting

Why New Media Will Make You Holier

For all of the attention New Media is getting, I don’t see very many articles that are espousing the virtues of things like Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter.

What I see a lot of is how they are going to corrupt the world. How we will have too much access to each other and with that type of transparency and access, it is only going to lead to a gravitational pull downwards as we lose our grip on morality.

Hogwash.

I’m here to say that the internet has actually led me closer to Jesus. This is why:

1. Someone is watching. One of the biggest problems with sin is we think we can get away with it, that no one is watching. You seldom see people do things when others are watching unless they want the other people to see what they are doing. I have had multiple incidents in the last year where someone has written me or challenged me that my behavior may not be moving me towards sainthood. Voila! Ingrained accountability! Of course, this assumes that you are moving from bad to good to better to best when it comes to the spiritual life and moral virtue. If you have not made a statement that you wish to do so, then your scandalous behavior that you exhibit is only a cheap thrill for others who may laugh at you. So be better. Someone is watching.
2. Exposure to information. I have never seen a time when I have less of an excuse to know what is going on in the Church or what the Church teaches as revealed by God. Readings for the day? The Catechism? The Conference of Bishops? The Vatican? Catholic news? Moral teaching? Prayers? We are nearing a point when a degree is almost pointless since most anyone can get any piece of information that they want within seconds ON THEIR PHONE! Think about the statement you just read. 2000 years of Church history and documents on your phone. We no longer have the excuse to say “I didn’t know!”
3. Prayer. Prayer intentions are passed around at an amazingly fast rate. I saw this with my kidney donation. The power of prayer is exponentially increased by the access to prayer intentions. That being said, please pray for a young child under the age of two who was beaten and is in a coma.
4. The Darkness meets the Light. If someone is struggling, I haven’t seen a more supportive group of people then the ones on social media. They don’t even have to be Catholic. Or Christian. I posted a while back that I was struggling. The outpouring of support was tremendous.
5. Questions get answered. Have a question that you need answered about the faith? I don’t think you could have that question on Twitter for more than one minute without an answer. That’s impressive to me.
6. I know what’s going on. News. Events. The plain and simple fact is that I know what is going on. I work for a parish part time and they are going to be getting a dose of new media in the coming year. Every event in the parish on Facebook and Twitter. You are literally able to reach your entire “flock” in seconds. Emergency announcements, the entire deal. If there is a Bible study… I’ll find it.

The point, in the end, is this. The choice to have a better prayer life, the choice to turn our will to God is up to us. The choice to have a better experience on the internet with new media is up to us as well. We can either decide to lie to others, be crass, and in general bring down the quality of the relationships we have via new media, or we can use it to build each other up.

It is the same decision we have to make in our everyday life.

If you are involved in ministry and you are not engaging the media to bring Christ to those around you, then not only are you missing out, but so are the people you serve.

Make the choice today to be better than yesterday. Not just in your life, but in your digital life as well.

Related posts:

1. Becoming a “Digital Evangelist”
2. In the Year 2000… Ministry in the New Media Age
3. What’s the ‘buzz’ about Buzz?