Brett Banter

All the ado over the past couple of days about the new, re-vamped website by the GOP got us thinking about the overall impact of the fuss. If you follow politics, you've likely heard that the Republican National Committee finally launched their new site earlier this week, complete with a bright red banner and an "O" in GOP that apparently metamorphoses into a different human face each time you click the page... to represent party diversity. The intent of the site re-launch is to create, according to Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele, "a forward-looking, open platform for the party of new ideas."

Critics pounded the site for looking too much like the Chinese flag, being short on content and crashing. Steele changing the name of his blog to "Change the Game" from the much-mocked initial title "What Up" didn't help much with the critics, either.

Bugs and other glitches aside, problems will eventually get fixed. But as you've probably heard many a time, no press is bad press. Our initial thoughts were how many MORE people will, as a result, be driven to the GOP.com website. GOP.com got many more web hits, links and traffic because of what's been called "negative press". Probably far more people - Republicans, Democrats, Independents and those unaffiliated with any party - are now familiar with and/or interested in the site, as a result.

So What Up with GOP.com? It may Change the Game more than you think.

More on the re-launch of GOP.com:

Wesley Donehue had some great insights.
The Washington Post
Politico
We also just learned via The Discust that there is a GOP site specific to South Carolina.