Divine Office Wins About.com Readers’ Choice Awards for Best Catholic Website, iPhone App, iPad App, Podcast (press release)

Mauro Dalu on

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, (March 15, 2011)—The readers of The New York Times Company’s About.com Website have selected a suite of offerings from the Divine Office Catholic Ministry as “The Best Catholic Website,” “The Best Catholic iPhone App,” “The Best Catholic iPad App” and “The Best Catholic Podcast” for 2011.

With more than 800 topic sites (Guide sites), About.com helps users find solutions to a wide range of daily needs, from parenting, health care and technology to cooking, travel and many others. About.com reaches 400,000 average monthly unique visitors in the United States (source: comScore Jan 2011).

The DivineOffice.org Website won the Readers’ Choice 2011 Award with 44 percent of the votes. The Divine Office “Universal for iOS” iPhone App won with 51 percent of the votes. The Divine Office iPad App won with 62 percent of the votes. The Divine Office podcast app won with 46 percent of the votes.

The Divine Office Catholic Ministry works to expand the awareness of and participation in the Liturgy of the Hours, introduce and practice the structure of this form of prayer, and assist in the recitation of the Liturgy in small groups, domestic prayer and where larger common celebration is not possible.

“The DivineOffice.org Website, the Divine Office Podcast and our Apps for iPhone and iPad emphasize the life-changing experience of prayer. In our continuing effort to provide more choices to the praying community gathered around this project, we have recently released Divine Office on the Mac App Store and are working on a version for the Android Marketplace. We are excited about being recognized by the Catholic community and will continue to invite our followers into prayer, always and everywhere, through interactive social media,” Dane Falkner, founder, the Divine Office Catholic Ministry, commented.

The Divine Office Catholic Ministry brings together thousands of people in daily prayer with some days exceeding 40,000 audio downloads from followers around the world. Over the past year, more than 150,000 unique visitors have visited the Divine Office Website to pray the Liturgy of the Hours, a form of Christian devotional prayer. Divine Office branded Apps were downloaded over 90,000 times in the last 12 months*.

The Divine Office app is now also available for Android on Google’s Android Market and Amazon Android Appstore and for Symbian on Nokia’s Ovi Store.

The Divine Office Liturgy of the Hours audio and full text is available online free of charge at the divineoffice.org Web site with a free companion audio podcast on iTunes. A small one-time download charge for the Divine Office apps supports the Ministry and development efforts.

The Divine Office Catholic Ministry in partnership with Surgeworks, Inc. offers a suite of Christian apps:

  • Divine Office-Autio Liturgy of the Hours one the go for several platforms;
  • Prayer app-reference of Catholic prayers in several languages for iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch;
  • Bible App-elegant, easy-to-use bible reader for Mac;
  • Morning Prayer (Lauds)-audio Liturgy of the Hours for iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch;
  • Evening Prayer (Vespers)-audio Liturgy of the Hours for iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch;
  • Night Prayer (Compline)-audio Liturgy of the Hours for iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch;

Attention Media: Free coupon codes are available upon request for review of the Divine Office apps.

About The Divine Office Catholic Ministry:

The Divine Office Catholic Ministry is an organization dedicated to gathering assets beneficial to the community of Christians praying the Liturgy of the Hours. For more information visit http://divineoffice.org.

About Surgeworks:

Surgeworks, based in Salt Lake City, Utah, specializes in user interaction and graphical design, rapid web and mobile device application development, and eCommerce solutions. For more information visit: http://www.surgeworks.com.

*Includes the following iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch apps in the App Store and the Mac App Store: Divine Office for iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch; Divine Office for Mac; Lauds for iPhone, iPod Touch; Vespers for iPhone, iPod Touch; Compline for iPhone, iPod Touch; Prayer (Catholic Prayers database in several languages for iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch); Compendium; Medjugorje