If you're new here, read more about the More Good Foundation. We help members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormon church) share their beliefs on the Internet. Learn more about what Mormons believe or talk with Mormons at LDS.net.

Facebook is now ready to launch its long-awaited Verified Applications platform, to protect users from some of the spammy applications that exist. In addition, it will now share feeds of your friends’ third-party apps, so you can see which ones they have chosen to use.

Speaking of apps, we’d like to remind those of you who include on Facebook some of your LDS interests and background, that there is an LDS Application of Facebook. It includes space for noting your personal scripture faves, and incorporates a few scripture mastery games. You have the option as to whether or not to include the information on your personal profile.

Additionally, take a look at the Ensign Facebook page–a fairly new development. For friends of other faiths visiting, The Ensign is a monthly magazine that shares messages from Mormon leaders and everyday members, includes a monthly message for Mormon Women to share with their neighbors, and Church news from around the world. If you are interested in purchasing a copy for your family, you can learn more about it and order it here.

Facebook is a great way to join the inter-faith conversation online. You can share links, videos, family photos on Facebook in a not-in-your-face kind of way, so that those visiting your pages can see the influence your faith has on your everyday life, inviting questions and participation in conversation with our friends of diverse backgrounds and faiths. (more…)

Tags: Facebook, inter-faith dialog, LDS app, LDS online, Mormon beliefs, Online missionary work

The LDS Newsroom, providing the latest happenings within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (”Mormons”), now has a presence on Facebook, and is active on Twitter.

The New York Times calls Twitter “one of the fastest-growing phenomena on the Internet.” TIME Magazine says, “Twitter is on its way to becoming the next killer app,” and Newsweek noted that “Suddenly, it seems as though all the world’s a-twitter.”

For official news and updates of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, visit their website

Click here to see current videos created by the Church Public Affairs Department.

You can also now receive breaking news text alerts on your mobile phone from Newsroom.lds.org. To sign up, text the word ldsnews to 29222 (United States and Puerto Rico).

Microsoft’s “I’m a PC” campaign has a site where you can immediately record or upload your story, or “reason for being a PC.” Images of each person are displayed in a “mural” which you can easily browse and watch. While I don’t care for the PC part, I like the site and concept.

http://imapc.lifewithoutwalls.com/

If there were something like this for Mormons, would people use it? What question or starting point would evoke the most and best responses? (And the definition of “best” is open for discussion.)

In celebration of its 10 year anniversary, Google has released a tool for searching its oldest search index, from 2001. A search for “Mormon beliefs” or “Mormon missionaries” returned a very different set of results 7 years ago.

Due to the efforts of the Church and many Church members, people looking for information about Mormonism can now expect to find a wide variety of stories, testimonies, and experiences from Mormons living their faith.

And there’s still more to do.

Tags: Google, history

Testimony Tag is an idea for sharing your beliefs on your blog and encouraging your friends to do the same. You may have seen these viral games of “tag” in which one blogger writes, for example, “5 things you didn’t know about me” and then “tags” others to do the same.

If you have a blog, you can participate in a Testimony Tag by
1. Creating a blog post about a Gospel topic
2. Linking to another positive website or resource about the Church
3. Encouraging (”tagging”) your friends to do the same

For more information, read Testimony Tag.

Thanks to David for sending this in. I thought this was a great idea.

By the way, for an example of being a missionary online, see Matt Asay’s post “Five things you don’t know about me”. In the course of explaining five things about himself to a business and technical audience, he mentioned both his high school seminary class and his mission to France. He wasn’t preachy; he simply mentioned elements of his beliefs and practices that were a part of his life. This sort of transparency and openness helps build bridges and dispel myths about the Church.

Speaking of websites launched by Church employees, Brian Hansbrow has recently launched LDSTeacher.com. LDSTeacher.com is a social network with the goal of “improving teaching and learning in the … Church.”

At LDSTeacher.com you can discuss such topics as how to invite the Spirit into lessons, how to increase student participation, and how to prepare to teach. In a Church with no paid ministry, teachers may find these resources helpful.

LDSMediaTalk.com is a new blog created by several Church employees to share “technology ideas for LDS parents and youth.” While this blog is not an official publication of the Church, these bloggers are experts in their fields and are close to the issues. Anybody interested in how the Church uses and will use technology to fulfill its mission should subscribe to this blog.

Participants include the following individuals, as well as occasional guests:

• Larry Richman, LDS.org Product Manager
• Joel Dehlin, Church CIO
• David Nielson, Managing Director, Church Audiovisual Dept
• David Frischknecht, Managing Director, Church Curriculum Dept

A recent MormonTimes.com article quoted Larry Richman relative to the launch of this new site:

Richman said the principal writers for LDSMediaTalk.com will glean technology information useful to families based on each author’s area of expertise. The curriculum director will focus on teaching the gospel. The audiovisual director will focus on Hollywood, movie-watching and music. The CIO will dig into technology issues. “I’m somewhere in the middle of all of those,” Richman said.

Facebook now allows advertisers to discover the size of specific demographic audiences. By doing a few searches related to the Church, I was able to get an idea of the number of Mormons on Facebook. (See image below.)

The number of people in the U.S. who listed a Church-owned university as their college*:

• 20,660 – Brigham Young University
• 9,300 – Brigham Young University-Idaho
• 1,200 – Brigham Young University-Hawaii

*A small percentage of BYU students are not Mormons, and I think this figure only includes students. The BYU network, which includes alumni and faculty, has 37,395 people.

The number of people, by country, who listed “The Book of Mormon” as an interest:

• 11,880 – United States (1 in every 1,679 Americans on Facebook)
• 700 – Canada (1 in 10,516)
• 140 – United Kingdom (1 in 45,768)
• 40 – Australia (1 in 37,458)

These interests are, of course, self-selected and don’t reflect the actual number of Mormons on Facebook. I personally have several Mormon friends who do not list The Book of Mormon as an interest or did not attend a Church-owned university. Though Facebook users can specify a religion, Facebook does not allow advertisers to see demographics by religion.

Other interests listed by people in the U.S.:

• 696,120 – The Bible
• 281,380 – God
• 46,160 – Spending time with my family
• 38,940 – Religion
• 26,420 – Going to Church
• 18,000 – Jesus Christ

The More Good Foundation is pleased to announce a partnership with Dr. Richard Holzapfel to create the #1 website about Jesus Christ at Christ.org. (In the meantime, we are redirecting traffic to Mormon.org.)

Dr. Holzapfel is a BYU professor of Church History and Doctrine and a prolific author. We are very excited and honored to work with him.

Christ.org will include top articles, music, and videos on the life, death, resurrection, and mission of the Savior Jesus Christ. It will be well documented, well designed, and translated into over a dozen languages. We hope it will bring everyone who visits it closer to Christ.

Question for Commenters: What resources or features should the top website on Jesus Christ include?

I thought that it would be nice to keep a snapshot of when we reached 1,000 articles on our Mormonwiki. If you click on the thumbnail it will be enlarged.