Religious social networks on the rise

September 18, 2007 | Eric Eldon | Comments | |

godtube-logo.pngReligious-themed social networks may be among the more under-appreciated of web sites.

Today, Comscore released numbers showing GodTube, a YouTube for Christians, to be the fastest growing site on the internet in August. It grew 973 percent and ranked among the top 1000 web properties by unique visitors — the same month it officially launched, as Mashable’s Kristen Nicole points out.

GodTube lets users, preferably Christians, upload, share and comment on videos.

Meanwhile, JewTube — yes, a YouTube for Jews — is facing a trademark lawsuit from Google.

We noticed the growth of religious social networks back in August, especially the fast growth of two Facebook applications, Bible Verses and Daily Bible Verse.

church-stats1.pngToday, we checked back in with Adoholic, our data source. Both apps have more than doubled their number of total users. But only a few thousand Facebook users are active with Daily Bible Verse daily, and only around 25,000 are active on Bible Verses.

Both apps allow user to prominently feature Bible Verses on their profile pages: If the measure of success is souls saved not user engaged, these apps are headed down the right path.

church-stats2.pngDaily Bible Verse, owned by a Christian social network called MyChurch.org, recently announced it had over more than 10,000 churches on its network.

Other funded religious social networks include CircleBuilder, a site designed more broadly for faith-based groups, and Oikos. As one Oikos developer said last month: “We’ve harnessed the power of Web 2.0 to create a Flash-based environment that has never been seen before in the Christian community.”

Question is, will MC Hammer get into the religious act with his new startup, the forthcoming DanceJam? After all, this author saw him perform a Christian concert (that included “Can’t Touch This”) at a revival service in Albany, Oregon, in 2001.

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About the Author, Eric Eldon

Eric currently covers digital media technology and business news, especially what's happening on social networks and their platforms. He also writes and edits stories about venture capital, and lots of other stuff, too. He started at VentureBeat in the spring of 2007, half a year or so after Matt Marshall left his reporting job at the San Jose Mercury News to found the site. Eric previously cofounded a startup called Writewith, that was building editorial software for newspapers and other groups of writers. The startup didn't work out, but he learned a lot.

  • JMC
    i just spent 2 hours trolling godtube. then i remembered that quote "don't argue with idiots. people may not be able to tell the difference"
  • Whats a Jew gotta do around here to get noticed? Yideoz.com is the original "JewTube" on the internet with a slightly sexier name and alot less problems with the law. Check it out for a taste of what we Jews are up to these days..
    http://www.yideoz.com
  • I am very interested to see the new social networking website that GodTube is releasing in addition to their YouTube clone. I think it is good people of all faiths are beginning to discuss religion more and more online. It is an important topic. A plug for many of the off the beaten path religions and beliefs at http://www.IsGodReligious.com.
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  • Cool site. Thanks!!!