Catholic Tech Talk

It’s been about 9 months since Google+ has launched, and many of us have gotten a good idea of what it’s all about and how it can best  be used.   The biggest misconception I’ve found is the tendency to try and understand the service through a simple “apples to apples” comparison with Facebook.  The [...]

You’ve probably heard about the potential benefits for your parish.  You’ve read about it here.  You’ve heard me say it.  Even some Bishops are tweeting.  The Facebook thing looks great.  Google+ looks interesting.  So you and the Pastor decide to give it a go.  You set up all the accounts, do your customization, you tweet, you [...]

It’s nice to see so many parishes embracing social media and establishing accounts on services like Twitter and building Facebook Pages.  As I look at various parish websites that have staff email addresses posted I have noticed that many are obviously personal addresses (i.e. @Yahoo.com, @Live.com, etc.) I wonder how many parishes have a technology, [...]

The Parish Website is becoming more and more common.  Most parishioners think the parish needs one, and most Pastors want one.  I’m a firm believer that every parish should have a website.  It’s my firm belief that the parish website’s purpose is to serve as a community hub and 24/7 extension of your parish office. [...]

As most know, Google+ launched a while ago and one thing I have particularly loved about it is the strong Catholic user presence on the service.  Up until yesterday the service lacked the ability for organizations and brands to have their own “page” like Facebook Pages.  So the announcement yesterday was very welcome news.  I [...]

This past year I read a great book by Jennifer Haigh called “Faith”.   The story begins in Boston in the 50′s and I remember this one little part standing out to me.  The Mother in the story gets her rosary, sits next to an open window in her apartment, and participates in a group [...]

I checked in at Google+ this morning and was surprised to see a user post that he just deactivated his Facebook account.  The question that immediately came up for me, “Why would he do that?”  As online social networking is evolving many are left wondering which one to use or use multiple services.  The other [...]

I’m sure there are Pastors out there getting the constant barrage of “we gotta be on Facebook”, “we gotta be on Twitter”, “we gotta get a better website”, so forth and so on.  I’m also sure that many Pastors are also similarly asking “Why?” which is where the conversation is often taking a “nose-dive”.  I [...]

If you’ve stopped into Facebook within the past week or turned on the news, you’ve probably seen and heard about big changes to the service format and features.  You’ve probably seen opinions that range from extreme displeasure to not knowing what to think.  It seems strange that a free internet service causes such huge stirs [...]

There’s been a lot of good discussion on Google+ lately in regards to Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for Catholics over the last week. Craig Berry then came out with a great post “Catholic SEO: A Failing Grade?”  When it comes to how search engines and discovery works on the internet a lot of people get [...]

I was an avid user of Microsoft Outlook Express and then Outlook for many years.  I liked the organization features (I despise paper planners) and having my calendar, contacts, and messaging all in one place that linked them together.  There were two things that I never liked: Having access to the information away from my [...]

As Catholics, we love to read and there a lot of great books that have been written on the faith as well.  eReaders and ebooks are getting a lot of attention, and if you’re finding it confusing . . . I can understand.  I read a lot of articles about ereaders in particular that are often full [...]

When it comes to technology, we do a great job of telling people what they should get.  But we don’t often do such as great job of explaining why.   So we can tell Catholics and parishes all these great things they should get and do, but it’s time to back track a bit to [...]

George Weigel, wrote a piece over at www.InsideCatholic.com entitled “Aggie Catholic Renaissance”. In it, he outlines the great successes Texas A&M has experienced with young Catholics…