Tech Forum

Let's assume there's a smaller church unit that hasn't provided any organized effort to keep members up-to-date with the various iterations of Church apps over the years. And there's no current leaders that are plugged into the latest-and-greatest changes on the Church side. A member then asks about the "new" Gospel Stream app, since they saw an online article published 02/20/24 Beginner’s Guide to the New Church App Called Gospel Stream. Their question essentially is "why should I download it, am I missing something?" And even after reading the article, local leaders can't really state how this aligns with content already available in the Gospel Library app, what they might see at the Church website, etc.

I guess my question is if there's any clear way to describe to members why they might want to learn yet another app -- what they might change about their gospel study habits, what content is unique to Gospel Stream, what might be overlapping but (hopefully) easier to access in Gospel Stream, and what still isn't there. For example, the article states that Gospel Stream contains Come Follow Me lesson videos. Are these videos exactly what you can already access in the Come Follow Me manuals? Would a member reading the Come Follow Me manual still most likely watch related videos from embedded links in the manual, or is the idea they would also go to Gospel Stream? Is the on-demand streaming, or the download-ability of videos on Gospel Stream, what provides unique capability for CFM videos?

I appreciate that the Church is trying to find multiple ways to provide member access to content (sacrament zoom meetings, broadcasts, CFM videos, etc), through this unified app, as well as other means. I suppose I'm uncertain if this is intended as an additional resource (I can look here as well as online or in the Gospel Library app), or a primary resource (I should consider always going here first when looking for certain types of media). Or if there's a better way of thinking about Gospel Stream, that our not-very-tech-savvy leaders could then share with our members.

And the Church Media Library homepage currently has a video alerting that the Gospel Media app is being replaced by Gospel Stream. Since I'm not entirely knowledgeable about what's currently in Gospel Media, I can't answer if Gospel Stream mostly just does things better, or what might be unique new capabilities that previously weren't available in Gospel Media.

Personally, I think Gospel Stream is aimed more at teachers who want/need to show a video to the class. But this could apply to family home evening as well.

Some may find it useful for personal study, but I don't think they're the target.

As far as I know, Gospel Stream is just a consolidation and replacement for the Gospel Media and Latter-day Saints channel apps. Everything on there (radio, videos, broadcasts) is also available on the Church's website and some content is also available on Gospel Library. It usually comes down to what you want to use.