Nativity 2.0: A Christmas Story for the Social Media Age

Dec. 20, 2010— -- Imagine if the Virgin Mary had a Gmail account. Or if the Three Wise Men bought their gifts for the baby Jesus on Amazon. Or if Joseph was just another Farmville fanatic on Facebook.

To bring the traditional Christmas story into the social media age, a Portugese digital marketing company created a YouTube video that tells the traditional story about the birth of Christ through Facebook, Twitter, Google searches, Foursquare, Amazon and all the other new media staples of modern life.

Since Excentric uploaded "The Digital Story of the Nativity" on Dec. 13, the video has been viewed more than 2.2 million times.

The video starts with a Google maps visit to Nazareth, where Mary's iPhone gets buzzed with a text message from the Archangel Gabriel heralding the birth of the baby Jesus.

She hops on to Gmail, where she e-mails "joseph.carpenter07@gmail.com with news of her pregnancy (signed, of course, "xoxo").

The video goes on to show Joseph tweeting his travel plans on Twitter, checking into a stable on Foursquare, buying a donkey and cow on Farmville and creating a "Meet the Baby" event on Facebook.

Even the Three Wise Men get the social media treatment. They buy their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh on Amazon and then follow the StarofBethlehem on Twitter, all the way to the stable.

"Times change, the feeling stays the same," the video says at the end. "Happy digital holidays."