What Mitt Romney's VP app learned from Zynga

The genius of the new Mitt Romney VP app is a lot like the genius of an addictive, yet simple, Zynga game, but instead of convincing you to keep tapping for FarmVille corn, this app asks you tap to get a politician's name. Like the games we have gotten ourselves addicted to, Romney's app plays on our mental desires. When you fire up Mitt VP, the purpose doesn't exactly jump out at you. And you might be underwhelmed by its lack of functions. It seems to be designed to do just one thing: tell users Romney's VP pick "first" -- whatever that means, since everyone who gets the app will be "first," and in order to get the news first from the app you would have to have it open at just the right moment before the headline "X is selected as Mitt Romney's vice president" doesn't blare at you from every other media device. Why would anyone use it at all? But, after spending time with the app and talking to a few app experts, that's sort of the function: convince you to keep using it long enough to get other people to use it. Every page of Romney's app does something for the campaign. Unlike Barack Obama, who has essentially had three years to prepare for this election, and has released a much more full-featured campaign app, Romney hasn't had as much time. But his app designers do appear to have learned what's worked from the Zyngas of the world in building an app whose main purpose is to replicate itself. 
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Read the full story at The Atlantic Wire.