Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Pope to send text messages to youth during World Youth Day

Several news services are reporting that the Catholic Church has decided to send text messages from the Pope to the estimated 225,000 youth who will participate in the World Youth Day celebrations in Sydney, Australia in July of this year.

The sending of inspirational text messages is not new. It has been possible for years to subscribe to services which would send you a daily inspirational message.

That the Catholic Church is using this technology with the specific intent of reaching out to young people is noteworthy for two reasons:
  1. because it demonstrates their interest in the youth of their church, and in reaching out to that demographic, and
  2. because is shows their willingness to adopt new technologies.
The prevalence of cell phones throughout the world even where landlines do not exist, and the incredibly large numbers of people that use cell phones for texting rather than voice communication makes this mode of communication worth understanding for any organization which wishes to reach out to large scattered audiences, particularly young audiences.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24501557/

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