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 many things, they were wrong.

We built it for you: our supporters and activists. You are the only people who matter in this as it’s your platform.

We Beta launched something else early Tuesday morning: Chairman Steele’s vision for a newly open GOP.com as a meeting place for grassroots Republicans—the people who paid for this platform—and the people who work back here in DC on your behalf. The reaction we have seen from our grassroots to this aspect of what we launched has been nothing short of exhilarating.

Lydia DePillis at The New Republic noted about  OurGOP: The Republican Action Network:

[The GOP] finally provided a framework for people to connect independently of party organization. My.barackobama.com was so successful because it helped organizers find each other, acting as a huge magnifier for any staff time the campaign could invest. The social networking bit--"ourGOP"--looks to be an impressively flexible and interactive conservative Facebook, much more inviting than the old site's transparent attempt to bank your contact info. In the first day, groups are forming and events being posted, a step towards the thousands upon thousands of such entities that have been building over at Democrats.org since the election.

Beta Flu aside, we are beyond excited for what we will see when we take this site, and the entire platform, out of Beta.

I am most excited to say: thanks for being part of the Beta team and I will see you on OurGOP.