The "user created content" aspect of web 2.0 has received a lot of attention. This forum is a great example of how the church is experimenting with tapping into that resource. But, because it is the Church of Jesus Christ, directed through priesthood authority and revelation, user generated content in the church's official websites has very limited applicability.
However, there is another part of web 2.0 that is equally important: distributed content and viral marketing. There are many, many members of the church active on the web with blogs and personal websites. There is a great opportunity for the church to leverage this web presence as a viral distribution channel for church produced content.
The new videos that are viewable on mormon.org are a good example. I think they are great. But they are only going to be seen by visitors to the mormon.org website. In other words, only those who have already been drawn to the website by other means will see them. However, if mormon.org would provide code next to them that viewers could copy and paste into their own blogs and webpages to embed the videos in their own websites, much like youtube and google videos can be, they suddenly become distributable. The church takes care of the bandwidth for the streaming video, but the videos are now available to visitors to personal websites of members--visitors who may never have come to mormon.org otherwise.
As they now stand, the videos can already be embedded into blogs and websites using the code below:
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<object width="492" height="324"><param name="movie" value="http://www.mormon.org/Static%20Files/MormonOrg/Flash/vid_player.swf"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.mormon.org/Static%20Files/MormonOrg/Flash/vid_player.swf" flashvars="vidRef=http://www.mormon.org/media/Mormonorg/Tony_Parker_Long_Search_for_truth.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" quality="autohigh" width="492" height="324"></embed></object>
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<div style="background-color: #30587d; font-size: small; text-align: center;">
<div><object width="164" height="108"><param name="movie" value="http://www.mormon.org/Static%20Files/MormonOrg/Flash/vid_player.swf"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.mormon.org/Static%20Files/MormonOrg/Flash/vid_player.swf" flashvars="vidRef=http://www.mormon.org/media/Mormonorg/Tony_Parker_Long_Search_for_truth.swf"
type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" quality="autohigh" width="164" height="108"></embed></object>
</div><a style="color: #ffffff;" href="http://www.mormon.org">Learn more at www.Mormon.org</a></div>
The other big problem with embedding the videos as they currently work is that they play automatically on pageload. If they are embedded in a blog post or a website sidebar, the visitors to that webpage should have to click on them to play them, otherwise they could quickly become annoying.
Eventually, code that can be provided that would randomly choose one of the available videos and embed it on a webpage.
And videos are just one kind of content. Ultimately, I envision a new section of Mormon.org where people can go to get code snippets that can be copied and pasted into their blogs and websites that will display widgets of distributed content from the church ranging from video, to church press releases, to inspirational quotes from modern prophets, or excepts from the Book of Mormon, all with links back to mormon.org.
By building this kind of distributed content portal, the Church will be able to display and update its content on thousands of websites each with their own audiences and each showing up in different google searches in which Mormon.org would never show up, and members will have easy-to-use tools for sharing the gospel on the web.
What do you think? Would you embed mormon.org videos or other content on your blog or website?