Easter Release!
Posted by Mark Fri, 06 Apr 2007 22:58:00 GMT
Happy Easter to all you eBiblers! We have something more relevant than chocolate eggs to celebrate the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ this year – more ways to use, understand and share the Word of God. That is right, a big new release of eBible.com has just gone live. Here is a rundown of the major changes:
Premium memberships
Basic membership accounts at eBible.com will always be free but we have just introduced a premium membership option for those who want a little bit more from their online Bible. This is a way for those of you who believe in this project to help towards the continued innovation and improvement of the site. See the details here but the basic idea is more content, more features and no ads for $99/year (only about $8/month).
And I see we have a few more eBible.com t-shirts laying around so why don’t we say that we’ll send the first 20 premium members one. Upgrade here! (and as a heads up we will be including a discount coupon code in next week’s first eBible.com newsletter. if you want one now, email us and tell us how you are going to spread the word about eBible and we’ll see what we can do for ya)
User Profiles
eBible.com has quickly become a worldwide community of people seeking God through His Word. But we haven’t provided a good way for everyone to get to know each other up until now. The next time you login you should be directed to your settings page where you should fill out some more information about yourself. Maybe even upload a photo like Lisa has already. Let other eBiblers know what part of the world you’re from, the church you attend, your favorite verse or passage, your testimony and more.
eBible Points
eBible Points is a new way to recognize the people who are using and sharing God’s Word through eBible.com. The more time you spend with your favorite online Bible, the more points you will accrue. While eBible points won’t get you free trips around the world, they will give others an indication about your seniority at the site. Everyone starts off as an “eBible Novice” and with enough points you will soon be an “eBible Enthusiast”. Here is how you can work your way up to the highest status, “eBible Scholar”:
- 50 points – Just for signing up free!
- 100 points – When you completely fill out your profile
- 250 points – For upgrading to a Premium membership
- 100 points – Use our Developer API
- 10 points – Invite a friend (+25 more points for accepted invite)
- 10 points – Email a verse
- 2 points – Add a bookmark (+5 more points if note is included)
Advanced Search
Our ever improving search engine now has new tricks up its sleeve to help you retrieve that verse you kind of remember and help you discover new ones using keywords and topics. Just click the advanced search link to reveal advanced search options or directly enter the new syntax in the search box yourself.
- Search for a specific phrase by putting quotes around your search (“light of the world”)
- Search for phrases that DO NOT include certains words by putting a minus in front of the term (“light of the world” -city)
- Limit your search to only one or more specific Bible translations (love NASB)
- Narrow your search to a specific section or book of the Bible by including it right in the query (love Pentateuch)
Did you mean __?
Looking at the webserver logs it is clear that users have a tough time spelling many of the big words in the Bible just like us. I mean how are you supposed to find verses about Nebachnezzar when you can’t spell it?! Introducing …. eBible.com’s new Did you mean feature:
Besides the above features there are a bunch of bugfixes in this latest release thanks to the emails we have received from all of you. Now it is your turn to let us know how we can make your online Bible better. We need to keep hearing from you. Even if you have emailed or posted a blog comment before … let us know again by posting a comment below.
Finally, brethren, farewell. Become complete. Be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you. (2 Corinthians 13:11)
Do my previous bookmarks not count towards my points? I have tons of previous bookmarks, but my points don’t reflect it.
Matt, we are working to update point totals next week to reflect everyone’s past use thanks to your comment. We were thinking eBible points would be “moving forward” but have decided to make them retroactive. The new point totals will reflect the bookmarks made, invitations sent and accepted plus the current developers using our API.
Keep the suggestions coming! Happy Easter to all!
Paid subscriptions == no ads? Does this mean that anyone purchasing ad space on your site is only reaching free visitors, not your pay subscribers?
You said to ask again, so here goes. I use an RSS Reader, and if it is in my reader, I read it. I would love to put a daily passage (or in my case, 3 passages from different parts of the Bible) into an RSS feed, even if the feed had ads built-in.
It seems like the API could handle this but I had a bit of trouble figuring it out. I could only get a verse or two at a time. I would love to help build a feature like this. This would put eBible way beyond anything I have seen so far.
Jay – yes advertisements do not show on every page of the site and not for every user. It is however, a large majority of total pageviews at eBible.com.
Luke – We are looking at 2 features that might play into this. One is a generic “Verse List” feature that any user can create and share a list of verses with a URL link and an RSS link. This would probably be static (no sense of the list being broke down daily or weekly). The second feature is a bible reading planner that users can use to create their own reading plan that is emailed to them regularly and/or available as an RSS feed.
Anything more custom than one of the above would have to be developed 3rd party. (Unless of course you can help us adjust one of the above to meet your needs)
I may be missing something, but how will you know if someone is using the developer’s API?
David – you must be logged in to request a developer key at http://ebible.com/api/signup so we associate that developer key with your user account. We are even looking at awarding eBible points based on the amount of usage tied to developer keys…
Thanks for that. I will try that soon.
Hey, just found this blog out. I’m an ebible aerly adopter and also a Typo developper. I’m happy to see this site uses the tool I’m working on.
Just keep up the good job
I think you have got a great site here and ebible has a ton of potential.
I must say though that I have a real problem with this new points system. I just do not understand why there is a need for letting everyone know who’s is the “best”. Especially that fact that you get the most points for paying money…it just seems a little backwards to me.
I would really like the option to turn off that list on the site and to remove any points that are next to my name.
Again, I dont want to come down on you guys. I really like ebible. This new change though concerns me.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts Matt. I think we may need to revisit the points for some things like upgrading to Premium … you are right. The general goal though is to reward people for using and sharing God’s Word and I don’t think that is a bad thing. In Sunday School we are rewarded with gold stars or chocolates, etc for bringing our Bible to class and memorizing verses and winning sword drills. We want everyone to know who are committed to searching, studying, sharing and participating in the community at eBible.com.
But give it some time and we’ll listen for more feedback and adjust. This is a community website and we are just trying to do our best and honor God through our work. We need your feedback!
Thanks for the nice Easter changes! I have two things to point out…
1. There are several places one can email a verse from – using a link in a list of search results or in one’s bookmarks. But why is there no link next to Study and Save when viewing a verse or passage?
2. When emailing a verse, which Bible version is being sent? Emailing it from the search results or bookmarks sends my default version, right? The only way to change the “sending version” is by changing my default version, which is a little too complicated for ebible, no?
God bless,
Thanks for the comments Mark. My tone came off a little harsh in that post and that was unintentional, Sorry if you thought that.
I still have some more thoughts though.
I think you guys are faced with a unique challenge as one of the few chrisitan websites in the web 2.0 community website world. So many of the “community” websites our there put all of the focus on the individual. My space, facebook, etc., are all about telling people what YOU like and who YOU are friends with and as christians we are called to live our lives for and put our identities in christ and HIS community, the church. So then the challenge I see ebible facing is how do you set yourself apart from the rest of the web2.0 world with those truths in mind?
When I came on 8 months ago I was so encouraged how the site worked in regards to community. I really think you guys responded well the the challenge. I guess that is why I was so taken back to sign on the other day to see the point system. You say the “goal though is to reward people” but im struggling to understand why people need to be rewarded with points. We give kids gold stars because they do yet understand the importance of the bible and the stars are a way to get them to read in the hopes that the light will go off and they will make the connection of the bibles importance. Apart from that, stars are not a permanent solution. If the child is doing it for the stars, once the stars are gone then their reason to read the bible is as well. I also wonder how many children are using ebible.
Again, im not trying to come down you all. I really like ebible and what it is doing and that is why I feel compelled to say something. I just see the point system as a step in the wrong direction.
God Bless you Mark and the work you guys are doing.