Now There's Political Apps

     With the 2012 election just ten weeks away, you may have been noticing an even bigger increase in exposure on the presidential candidates through the various forms of media. More money than ever is being dumped into T.V. spots. Many of you may have even noticed an increased social media presence promoting the candidate and even enticing you with some campaign giveaways. I am sure some of you may have even noticed an increase in email from each candidate's campaign. President Obama is always looking for at least three dollars from me a day. There are even political apps for smartphones and tablets out now, and some of them are entertaining and informative.

     One app I downloaded is called the Super Pac App (free). What it does is it listens to political advertisements on television and matches the ad's audio waves against a database. It then tells the app's user who paid for the ad and how much they're spending on the campaign before pointing them to nonpartisan sources -- PolitiFact, FactCheck.org and others -- to try to verify the ad's claims. Ever since organizations, and corporations, have been allowed to raise unlimited amounts of money and create their own ads, fact-checking has become more important than ever. TV airwaves in battleground states have been full of ads making negative claims about both President Obama and his rival Mitt Romney, and this app makes it very easy and convenient to sift through and see what is accurate and what is false. 

     Another app is downloaded is called VOTE!!!(free). This app is more comical and good for entertainment purposes. The app allows users to pick a stylized cartoonish version of their preferred presidential candidate and then duke it out through multiple rounds. The game focuses on arcade-style fighting and encourages players to keep on swinging for more votes. Depending on the goals you accomplish, and the amount of hit you give and block, the more money you raise for your campaign. This allows you to customize your character, and buy weapons or power-ups. What's also cool about this game is that it collects all the votes from all players all over the world. the theory is if you're actually voting for Obama, then you'll likely be playing as him in the game. So the game will have this running tally of who's winning the election. The game has also partnered with Rock the Vote to encourage gamers to vote in the 2012 election.

    As the weeks wind down, we will see more aggressive campaigning, Keep an eye out and see all the different forms of advertising they do.