CIYP/Top 10

In the latest update, we added Google Analytics to see which pages and features our more than 40,000 subscribers are viewing.  It’s clear that people are paying attention to the political process and not just looking up their own members.  First, just looking at the folks who use Congress (our 99¢ app), here are the top “pages” viewed in the app:

Congress Top 10

1. Michele Bachman – launched presidential campaign
2. John Boehner- Speaker of the House, debt ceiling
3. Freshmen – Most vulnerable in 2012
4. Kelly Ayotte – freshman senator active on BBA
5. Mitch McConnell – Senate Minority Leader, debt ceiling
6. Nancy Pelosi –  House Democratic Leader, debt ceiling
7. Open Seat – Special Election in California-36
8. Eric Cantor – House Majority Leader, debt ceiling
9. Sandy Adams – Represents Kennedy Space Center’s district
10. Diane Feinstein – Bad poll, talk of Maria Shriver as replacement

Let’s contrast this to our professional users, those who buy CongressPro for the ability to get updates over the air, have separate tabs for committees, and take notes (also added in this round to Congress+).  They are looking more at the inside-baseball aspects of redistricting as well as those under-the-radar members who are attempting to move the debt limit ceiling debate.

CongressPro Top 10

1. Notes – People are using the ability to take notes
2. Bookmarks – They’re checking their bookmark lists
3. Lamar Alexander – Pushing for a debt limit deal
4. John Barrasso – Pushing for a debt limit deal
5. Freshmen – See above.
6. Brian Bilbray – California redistricting makes him a target
7. Chris Coons – Pushing save-as-you-go legislation
8. Diane Feinstein – See above
9. John Campbell – See Bilbray.
10. Jeff Bingaman – Came out against ethanol subsidy

Going forward we are going to add the ability to track Congress+ “pages” as well and roll-up a CIYP/Top 10 that we’ll report out often.  Look for it here and also on our Twitter and Facebook accounts.

Congress in Your Pocket for iPad

The wait is almost over. No April Fool. Seriously.

We have spent several months getting our iPhone application to work with the iPad. There were dozens of technical challenges as well as the 112th Congress update to deal with over the past few months. But the good news is this: we submitted the iPad version to Apple for review today. Kudos to our development team led by Sean Cook, who has done an outstanding job.

Congress+ and CongressPro, when approved, will be “universal apps.” This means that if you already paid for either one, you’ll be getting the iPad version for free. We will not be releasing an iPad version for Congress, our 99¢ version. If you already unlocked the 112th Congress on your iDevice, please remember to answer “No” to the first question when you see the update. This way you won’t have to pay the update fee again.

Congress+ and CongressPro look pretty amazing on an iPad. All of the links that look a little small or squished on an iPhone look just great on the iPad. The iPad 2 is particularly fast in loading up these links. Both the iPad and iPad 2 are very fast in processing searches and do a neat job of showing large photos if you tap on the smaller thumbnail.

Going forward, we are already redesigning the iPad version to take better advantage of the screen. We are going to provide the list on the left side of the page in landscape with a large pane on the right for content as well as links. It will be really, really great. We wanted to get this first version to you (you’ve been patient) and to make sure we didn’t miss anything along the way.

Thank again for purchasing Congress in Your Pocket. We look forward to hearing from you once it’s released. Look for screenshots in this space soon.