The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has announced a public beta of the next version of the official website: lds.org.
Check it out at beta.lds.org
From the official announcement:
A major project to improve Church Web sites has been in process for the past few years to (1) provide a redesigned, user-friendly look with navigation and content in languages and the ability to search across all Church Web sites and (2) upgrade the software and infrastructure to allow us to build Church Web sites more efficiently and with greater flexibility.
We are pleased to announce a beta test of the redesigned LDS.org. We invite you to review it at beta.lds.org and provide your feedback. Please note the following new features:
- New home page with all content grouped into six major categories to make it easier to find. (As you navigate deeper into the site, you’ll see some old pages that will be gradually rebuilt over the next several months.)
- The ability to search content on all Church Web sites. (Previously, you could search only the Gospel Library.)
- A-Z index (a table of contents of all Church Web sites).
- A new Gospel Topics section that provides answers to questions about the Church and its teachings. (This section will be expanded over the next several months.)
- News and Events.
- Helps to prepare a lesson or talk.
- Expanded e-mail subscriptions (daily news, new categories for LDS Gems, and information about new Church products and offerings on Church Web sites).
- For more information on what’s new and what’s still to come, see www.lds.org/pdf/Whats_New_LDSORG.pdf
In the summer of 2006, we will replace LDS.org with this upgraded version. At that time, we will also release an enhanced Gospel Library with more content, more formats, and better search capabilities. We will also release more language editions of scriptures. Later in 2006, LDS.org will be available in the following nine additional languages: Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. We will continue to build the Gospel Library in these and more languages. In the meantime, you can use beta.lds.org in English or refer to the old LDS.org to see the existing language materials.
We invite your feedback about this test site. Just click Feedback at the top of any page.