By Carrie A. Moore
Deseret News religion editor

      Picture this: Hundreds of thousands of visitors from all over the globe will swarm Salt Lake City, in some cases snarling traffic and straining existing resources.
      Sound like a description of the 2002 Winter Olympics?
      Nope. You won't have to wait that long.
      These out-of-towners aren't looking for the nearest ski resort or searching out the local pub. By and large they're teetotalers, interested solely in Temple Square and what's happening inside the Tabernacle there this weekend.
      They're part of a growing tidal wave of Internet users surfing the World Wide Web for religion. And they've found it here in the heart of Mormondom.
      As the 168th Semiannual General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints begins this morning, millions of listeners will tune in via TV, radio and satellite transmission.
      But for many thousands at the far reaches of the globe who can't get those broadcasts, the Internet has become the medium of choice. So they're paying a virtual visit to Utah, either to hear or to read the dozens of messages church leaders will deliver during the conference's five two-hour sessions.
      "We have so many people trying to access (real audio) that it sends our number of (Web site) 'hits' off the Richter scale," says Russell Banz, Internet director for KSL Radio. "Once that wave hits, it hits. Real audio has been extremely popular with people who are trying to listen live" at www.ksl.com.
      So popular, in fact, that some listeners have taken a hint from selected Salt Lake area residents, who camp out on Main Street the night before the July 24th Pioneer Day Parade to save a seat.
      "Some people get on one of those audio streams and start listening the day before it even begins. They're literally camped out on that stream and keep it all through conference," says Banz, a noticeable wince in his voice.
      Not that he doesn't like the traffic. But there are only so many "streams" on the radio station's bandwidth, meaning only a limited number of people can listen in during the live sessions.
      How many?
      "The funny thing is, we don't really know. We know our general conference (Web) page got at least 105,000 hits on (the first) Sunday" in April, when the last conference was in session. "That's more than five times the traffic we normally get over an entire weekend.
      "But we honestly don't know how many (users) our bandwidth will accommodate. Our engineering people have tried to come up with numbers, but we haven't got a good handle on it."
      This much they do know — many more try to get access than are actually successful, and buying additional access is cost-prohibitive. Which has prompted KSL engineers to post a message on the Web site, pleading with those who have any other option for listening to the conference to leave the streams open for those who don't.
      Like who?
      "We get messages from all over the world; we got one from Bejing just last weekend with BYU football. They e-mailed us that they were getting our signal 'loud and clear."'
      But how many Chinese understand English?

Foreign language real audio
      Scott Johnson says if they tap into his Web site, it won't matter. "We're offering real audio coverage in eight languages; Mandarin, Cantonese, German, French, Portuguese, Japanese, Spanish and Samoan," says Johnson, editorial director for Brigham Young University's NewsNet Web site, http://newsnet.byu.edu.
      Initiated during last April's general conference, BYU's offering came as the result of an agreement with Bonneville Communications, which sends the translated audio messages directly to NewsNet via the school's campus cable, where users can tap into them.
      But much akin to KSL's frustration, there are only a limited number of audio feeds available simultaneously — 360 to be exact. And again, users who have other means of hearing the conference are encouraged to leave the links free for those who don't.
      Without any type of advertising for its multilingual conference broadcast, the NewsNet system was "taken to capacity last time," Johnson said. "Bonneville maxed out within a minute or two, and several of our servers maxed out, which caused some of them to crash. It was definitely a learning experience last time; we hope this time it will go much smoother."
      And the response?
      "People from Germany, Japan, South America — we've had people from all over the world posting messages telling us how much they appreciated it. One small branch in South America where they don't get it live — their branch president had Internet access at his home. He had all the branch members come to his home, and they listened to it in Portugese."

Audio archives available
      For those who aren't lucky enough to link in during the live broadcast, archive links are available at both the KSL and NewsNet sites for approximately one month after general conference ends. Those who still want to hear the audio are able to link into the archive and select which sessions or speakers they want to hear.
      Yet for all the interest it has generated, the real audio broadcasts are just the tip of this Internet iceberg.
      Stewart Shelline, Deseret News director of new media, said the newspaper's Web site, www.desnews.com, was getting about 400,000 hits per day last April, but when general conference weekend came, the total spiked to just below 600,000.
      Unlike the real audio sites, text-only sites like the Deseret News can accommodate a virtually unlimited number of users.
      Summaries of the conference talks are posted on the Web site following each session of the conference. The full text of each speaker's remarks is then posted within a few days.
      With every general conference, the number of users at the newspaper's web site has increased substantially, Shelline said.
      "If you looked at a graphic of our traffic, you'd see a peak, and a valley, a peak, and another valley, with the peaks representing general conference months in April and October, and each peak higher than the previous one.
      "Not only that, they (Web site visitors) hang around. It increases the overall exposure for the site, so even though there's a valley after each general conference peak, a high percentage of them stick around and come back to the site," Shelline said.
      The LDS Church's own Web site, www.lds.org, also posts the full text of general conference talks within days after the sessions end.

Text in 12 languages
      Jim Arsenault, Internet coordinator for the LDS Church, says the conference text files on that site include not only the English version but 11 other languages as well: Indonesian, Danish, German, Spanish, French, Italian, dutch, Norwegian, Portugese, Swedish and Finnish. "(Foreign language) conference talks from last April were just put up on the site on Sept. 2. Hence forward, we will be putting up the text of those talks in those languages, and probably some additional ones as well."
      In fact, the church site may provide full-text versions of this weekend's conference in as many as 24 languages within the next few months. "We will be doing additional ones and they will be appearing gradually. It just depends on when we can get everything ready, but (conference texts in) additional languages will be appearing over time," Arsenault says.
      "There is some correlation between the languages that the (church's) International Magazine is doing and what we're doing. The same processes for creating the magazines (now published in 31 languages) are basically used to create the content for the Web site. There may be some variations over time, but generally the same internal processes are used."
      New to the site within the past few months — and in some cases, the past few days — are full texts of recent well-publicized public addresses given by general authorities, including one by church President Gordon B. Hinckley on Sept. 25 to the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Salt Lake City.
      Also included are excerpts of TV interviews with two general authorities on the subject of polygamy, as well as the transcript of President Hinckley's recent television interview with Larry King on CNN.
      Past conference addresses by some general authorities have acknowledged the Internet's capability to promote both good and evil content.
      As a result, the church's own Web site "has quite a bit of attention among the brethren," Arsenault says, and they realize both its potential and its pitfalls. "They're very carefully mapping out our direction for the future."