The latest Web site for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was launched today — part of a series of initiatives aimed at streamlining and improving the way the Church communicates through the Internet.
The changes made today to www.lds.org — a site aimed primarily at Church members around the world — include access to scriptures in multiple languages (now available in English, German, Italian, French and Spanish) and a substantially improved search engine and easier navigation.
New content management software will allow for more collaboration between Church headquarters departments to make information about the Church more accessible via the Web. Together, Church Web sites often already receive up to 12 million page views in a single week.
Meanwhile, the Church is continuing to develop sites and technology to meet growing interest around the world. Two existing Church sites — www.mormon.org and www.familysearch.org — specialize in, respectively, messages for people who are not members of the Church but who are inquiring about it, and resources for those who are undertaking genealogical research.
A new Newsroom Web site was launched in a beta (test) format in December and is expected to replace the current Newsroom Web site in February. Earlier this month, the Church launched the LDS Tech Web site, which includes a forum for technology discussions.
The first blogs by Church representatives are also starting to appear, on topics ranging from the Church and technology to the place of the Church in society.