Inspirational messages have always lurked around in social media. One of the earliest forms of social media was the email and people have used it to send several messages in document form or Powerpoint presentations that are intended to inspire the recipient(s) to work harder, eat healthier and among other things.
With the recent surge of the newer social media platforms like Facebook, Whatsapp, Instagram, Twitter and the likes, you may have seen posts from people or specific accounts that inspire people. Now, there is a new social networking platform that will connect people who were searching for inspiration in the religious sense.
ePray was officially launched on May 4th this year. Their mission is to “connect the world in love and prayer through social media and provide support in times of joy and pain”. Anyone can post a prayer which are instantly viewed & shared by other people. The posts are public by default & also connect similar posts to get “everyone praying”.
When you login to the site, you are requested to login using either your email Facebook or Twitter accounts. After a successful login, you are greeted with a timeline with featured posts at the left and the other posts by other users on the right. At the top there is a bar that has the home button, notifications, care button, explore button, post button and the settings button. There is a 150 character limit on the posts & you can embed a picture in a post. In addition, there is a search bar where you can look for inspirational posts that have been posted by other people.
Apparently ePray had received tens of thousands of user sessions and thousands of new users before they officially launched. The company’s CEO and co-founder, Tom Freiling was quoted as saying “The platform’s quick ramp-up is evidence that this generation has moved everything online, even religion and spirituality”. He also noted that there are over 1 million monthly searches that include “prayer” and other related keywords & the company intends to target that search volume.
ePray is currently only accessible via desktop or mobile web apps which are based on a custom version of WordPress. A native app is reported to be released during autumn, which is around September up to November.
This social networking site feels like a church fellowship of sorts where you send digital prayer requests & receive love and support from the community.
