Why the Romney VP App Wasn't a #Fail
Why the Romney VP App Wasn't a #Fail
—By Tim Murphy| Mon Aug. 13, 2012 9:25 AM PDT
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Gawker's Louis Peitzman makes a claim I've seen a lot, especially from progressives, in the wake of Mitt Romney's selection of Rep. Paul Ryan as his running mate: The campaign kind of blew it. Not on the substance, mind you, but on the rollout. "I'm not saying this was a complete fail on the Romney campaign's part, but to pretend that they announced Paul Ryan exactly as they'd said they would — via smartphone app, and then in a joint public appearance — is just silly," Peitzman writes. "Instead of admitting they botched their plan to obfuscate, the Romney campaign is pushing a Hardy Boys narrative..."
Peitzman is missing something really important. The real purpose of the Romney VP app wasn't to break the VP announcement. Sure, that's how they pitched it. But the Romney folks (probably) aren't so delusional as to think they'd be able to keep a secret all the way up to the roll-out.
The VP app served the same purpose the Obama campaign's 2008 promise to text its supports its VP pick did: It was an excuse to collect your data. Although it was predictably scooped by the New York Times and CNN, Team Obama was able to collect 2.9 million phone numbers using this gimmick. Those numbers were used for fundraising and organizing efforts later in the campaign. (The downside: A glitch prevented half of Obama's text-message subscribers from receiving the announcement text.) Download the Romney VP iPhone app and it informs you that "By using this application, you may be placed on Romney for President Inc.'s contact list to receive campaign updates… Romney for President's regular Privacy Policy shall apply." Romney doesn't want you to be the first to know about his personnel moves; he wants your email and mailing address.
more: http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/08/no-romney-campaign-didnt-botch-its-vp-announcement
maybe this explains this? 
Did the Romney Campaign Just Get Punk'd Again? DU gets a mentions
Two weeks ago, the Mitt Romney campaign was seemingly punk'd when the GOP presidental candidate's Twitter account suddenly picked up more than 100,000 new Twitter followers in a single weekend. Many of the followers appeared to be bots, and the fake followers were used to make fun of Romney, as #MoreFakeMitt started trending on Twitter. Zac Moffatt, the Romney campaign's digital director, confirmed that the campaign had not bought the followers.
Today, the Romney campaign tells Whispers that there's been an online glitch once again.
A number of people, some of whom seem unlikely to cast a vote for Mitt Romney, reported this week that they quite suddenly found themselves spammed by fundraising E-mails from the Romney campaign, many of which arrived at their workplaces or used other hard-to-find E-mail addresses.
Jillian York at the Electronic Freedom Foundation seems to have been the first to notice the spamming, as well as the commenters at the online community Democratic Underground.
more:http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2012/08/13/did-the-romney-campaign-just-get-punkd-again
here is the DU thread
http://www.democraticunderground.com/125168594
belated welcome to Jillian York.
and just saw another tweet about it.
Eric Umansky ?@ericuman
Anyone gotten campaign email from Ann Romney--w/o having signed up on campaign list? B/c I just did. pic.twitter.com/P3dVoGLE
