The Vatican Gets Hip, Launches iPhone & Facebook Applications
source: The Cleveland Leader, Via GossipGirl
Though the Catholic Church is steeped in thousands of years of tradition, it doesn't mean they aren't keeping up with the modern world. The Vatican is now taking new technologically savvy steps to bring its messages to social networking sites and smartphones through new Facebook and iPhone applications available through the new Pope2You web portal.
Launched Thursday, the Facebook app allows web users to send virtual postcards of Pope Benedict XVI to their Facebook friends. The Pope2You portal - located at www.pope2you.net - will even allow you to follow the Pope's travels using an iPhone. The iPhone app also works with iPod Touch, and gives surfers video and audio news on the pope's travels and speeches, as well as Catholic events around tehw orld.
On just its first day of operation, the Pope2You portal acquired 45,000 contacts and 500,000 pageviews, and the new Facebook app was used about 10,000 times.
The introduction of the iPhone and Facebook apps are just the latest efforts in the Vatican's efforts to reach young people and broaden the pope's audience. This past January, the Pope got his own YouTube channel (which is now linked on the Pope2You portal).
The Pope2You portal is run by the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Social Communications. It is available in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish.
