On Tuesday morning at 1:00 AM EDT, we took the website portion of our web platform into live Beta. Our traffic grew by 440%, sign-ups to OurGOP: The Republican Action Network took off. We thank you for that.

As I noted in my blog and a video you can see on Rebuilding the Party, Beta releases often come with technical issues. That’s why technology people label things “Beta.” We did not escape the Beta Flu. As some bloggers have noted, there were problems accessing the site. Our Beta experience put us in the very good company of some of the biggest technology companies.

We experienced something the big tech companies did not. What they didn’t experience was vicious liberal bloggers and some confused people in big media—taking time out of reporting on yet another radical presidential appointee to report that, by golly, a Beta release of a web platform had an issue.

 It appears that the media and the leftosphere thought we were building the new GOP.com for them. As they are about ... more

Within fifteen minutes of meeting him, Chairman Michael Steele convinced me he was sincere about making new media a centerpiece of Republican politics. I had explained to the Chairman my point of view that, unless we are willing to embrace being open and social in social media, we would have no success. We discussed the inherent risk of a political party leaving itself open to the online pranks of our opponents and the instant amplification of that pettiness by the likes of former Sportscasters with niche, liberal cable programs aimed at a zip code 94720-2284.

“I guess we better stop having Town Hall meeting and listening to folks! Someone might be rude to us.” The Chairman said. Not familiar with his style—when he says he’s not your “Great Grandpa’s Chairman”, he’s being humble—I was stunned. He laughed, grabbed my hand and said, “Todd … Facebook and social media are the best chance we have to visit with the greatest number of supporters, to know more of them---to learn from ... more