United Methodists Prepared for Online Visitors at General Conference

NASHVILLE – United Methodist Communications is prepared for thousands of online visitors to watch and gather information on the denomination’s 2008 legislative conference in Fort Worth, Texas.

“The Internet is the window into the General Conference for people around the world,” said the Rev. Larry Hollon, top executive of the denomination’s communications agency. “Live video and audio streaming offer an opportunity to view and listen to many of the proceedings of the General Conference.”

About 1,000 delegates from around the world will gather April 23 to May 2, 2008 to determine priorities and set a direction for the 11-million member denomination. The General Conference’s proceedings will be available through GC2008.umc.org or www.umc.org. Worship, special addresses, celebrations, and other selected plenary sessions will be available on live video streaming.

Since the 2004 General Conference, United Methodist Communications has markedly expanded and upgraded its Internet capability to meet users’ needs and expectations.

“Our goal is to be the on-line leader among major denominational organizations,” Hollon said. “We are confident we will not have the issues that affected many persons who followed the work of the General Conference on the Internet four years ago.” The denomination’s Web sites were often overloaded during the 2004 conference, resulting in shutdowns and lengthy delays in accessing vital information.

After 2004’s General Conference, Hollon said United Methodist Communications’ selected Kintera, Inc. (NASDAQ: KNTA), a San Diego, Calif. based software as a service provider, to host the organization’s Web site. By selecting Kintera, United Methodist Communications will be able to handle high volumes of Web traffic and continually meet the demands placed by the church’s growing number of Web visitors.

“Kintera is focused on continually providing our clients with the software they need to meet their mission,” said Scott Crowder, chief technology officer for Kintera. “Kintera’s fault tolerant and redundant data centers help to ensure that clients like United Methodist Communications can safely increase Web traffic without sacrificing performance.”

“We live in a different Web world in 2008. We learned from 2004 and we are benefiting from expanding technology,” Hollon said. “We are better prepared. We have the right systems in place, and we have the right people positioned to deal with any issues.”