Christian website gives access to over 330 emoji in keyword searches

Bible Gateway is allowing users to search for keywords with emojis.

Religionnews reports that the Internet’s most visited Christian site now lets users use over 330 emoji to search for keywords on its website and app.

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Bible Gateway lets users search for keywords with emojis 

(religionnews)

According to Stephen Smith, senior director of digital products for Bible Gateway, this does not change anything as the words remain the same.

“We’re not changing any words in the text of the Bible — we’re simply letting people search using emoji that they type themselves,” he said.

In a written statement, he said the decision to use emoji is based on the increasing number of Bible readers, who use emojis to aid digital communication.

"Bible readers have also embraced emoji to a certain extent. About 3% of public Bible notes and 2% of tweets linking to Bible verses contain emoji, with the percentages increasing each year.

People generally use emoji to express an emotional response that would be cumbersome in text. You can see this use in these three emoji–people are reacting via emoji to what they’re reading.

The Bible Gateway search engine focuses on these representational emoji.

To search for an emoji, just enter it into the Bible Gateway search box using the emoji keyboard on your device", he wrote.

play

Bible Gateway lets users search for keywords with emojis 

(biblegateway)

What do you think about this?