Disqus - Latest Comments for almacy

Re: Friday Five: Digital Road to the White House

almacy — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 09:21:04 -0000

Thanks, Vivian!

Re: Friday Five: Digital Road to the White House

almacy — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 09:14:43 -0000

Thanks for the feedback, "Wind."

Although leaks to the media that aired after late night Olympic coverage about Governor Romney's running mate preceeded the actual announcement, the app was the first official confirmation from the Romney campaign that Paul Ryan was the pick two hours before the Romney-Ryan event in Virginia early the next morning.

You may recall that the Obama campaign experienced something similar in 2008 after Joe Biden's name surfaced in the press long before those who signed up for text updates were notified. In addition to press reports, media were staked outside Biden's house and those who followed NBC's Jim Long on Twitter were the first to know that Biden was the pick before the Obama campaign could text anything out as advertised.

However, that's not the point. Sources from both campaigns will tell you that the ability to bring voters, volunteers and supporters into the process was the ultimate goal. Over 200,000 people downloaded Mitt's VP app in the first 24 hours and it grew steadily from there. Although the revamped Obama 2012 app was released on the same day, "Mitt's VP" peaked at #14 atop the list of free downloads in iTunes compared to #120 for Obama. Just this past week, Mitt's VP app was converted into a Romney campaign app to provide hundreds of thousands with information about news, policy issues and events. (You can read more about the new Romney-Ryan app via BuzzFeed: http://ow.ly/dovZD)

Of course, there were bumps in the road but an "epic failure?" Hardly. It's easy to criticize from afar, but the reality is that it takes a significant amount of time to develop a meaningful user experience and effective custom campaign tool designed to operate on a plethora of mobile platforms. The Obama campaign has had almost four years to do so and was likely hard at work back when the GOP was still in the heat of the primary season. So, as far as comparisons, let's attempt to be fair.

Your point regarding fundraising is valid. Though I thought it was implied, perhaps I should have added the qualifier that the Internet has "helped" level the playing field. Under current law, individual contributions are limited to $2,000 so the ability to compete is extremely limited when compared to bundlers and the fundrasing power of the DNC, RNC, PACs and Super PACs who some claim could be pumping in as much as $3 billion across all political campaigns of both parites this cycle. Other than the Internet, I don't know of any other methods that can raise and process $7.4 million donated by 101,000 people in 72 hours.

Re: Capitol Tweets: Yeas and Nays of the Congressional Twitterverse

almacy — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 12:50:42 -0000

The paper was written in an effort to analyze "official" Twitter use (not campaign) primarily by U.S. Members of Congress in both the House and Senate specifically between the months of September and December 2011. The timeline was created to provide some additional background and context around how Twitter has evolved in Congressional offices and in the halls of the U.S. Capitol over the past few years. Thanks, Sonia!

Re: Friday Five: On-The-Go Restaurant Resources

almacy — Fri, 20 May 2011 18:35:24 -0000

Great article! There's a new app called Venga (http://GoVenga.com) for restaurants in the Washington, DC area that is getting some inital positive buzz including this article in the Washington Post: http://bit.ly/GoVenga. Enjoy!

Re: I am leaving Intel; joining Edelman Digital

almacy — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 23:50:08 -0000

Michael - Thrilled to hear that you and Bruce Eric are joining the Edelman team! Plus, a ringing endorsement by Amybeth gets big points in my book. Look forward to working with you!

Best,
David Almacy
Edelman Digital Public Affairs
Washington, DC

Re: How To Help the Tooth Fairy & Other Magic

almacy — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 16:36:13 -0000

Same thing happened to our 5yo when she was brushing her teeth. Since this was her first tooth, Daddy tore the sink apart and sifted through some pretty filthy pipe water - all to no avail.

She drew a picture of the tooth and we crafted a short note for the Tooth Fairy to put in her little purple, satin tooth pillow and placed it carefully under her big pillow.

Fortunately, in the morning, she was rewarded with a $1 Presidential coin (http://www.usmint.gov/mint_... and we were rewarded with a plumber bill! Worth every penny.

Re: YouTube To Congress: Your Videos Are Lame

almacy — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 20:24:04 -0000

The Rickroll continues...

Re: Politics In 140 Characters Or Less

almacy — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 18:29:18 -0000

Good post, Greg. Couple things, though.

1) Yes, it really is Rep. Culberson who is Twittering.

2) As you point out, the debate isn't so much about whether to use Twitter or not, but rather whether a Member of Congress is permitted to use taxpayer funded devices (i.e. BlackBerry) to publish "official" communications on sites outside the house.gov domain - I believe that YouTube was the original target of discussion.

Speaker Pelosi & Minority Leader Boehner fired letters off to each other re: the role of the House Admin Committee's "Franking Commission." The commission is the Congressional body that has historically regulated this type of communication for Members (such as free postage for official snail mailings). Limiting their venues, Boehner and Culberson argued, is a violation of their First Amendment rights.

I give Rep. Culberson, Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH) and others credit for reaching out to constituents in new ways. It's about time Congress started governing in the 21st Century without using 19th Century methods!

I also wrote about this on my blog CapitalGig at http://capitalgig.com/2008/....