Hi all! We're back with a huge update today for the Countable iOS app! Since the inauguration, users have sent over 2.7 million messages to Congress through Countable, and we've learned a lot from them about how to make the app even better. In this update we stuck to 3 main things:
1. Calling. Now users can call their lawmakers after taking action on anything in the app - whether it's a news story or pending piece of legislation
2. 3D Touch! We've baked it in all across the app. Hard-press the app icon to quickly access you lawmaker's contact info, and peek in to stories and bills in the app.
3. Navigation. One feed for news. One feed for bills that are coming up for a vote. One feed for your activity.
We're sticking around today to answer questions!
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From a first look, this seems really well executed. Well done.
A question. Does it support all factions of the political landscape to take action? Most apps I see from the tech world that are to assist politics, are only catered to empower other progressives to achieve progressive ideals - which seems antithetical to democracy - in that unless one also empowers their enemies voice to also be heard and recognised or countered, then one can overtime become the radicalised force they feared.
@balupton Hi Benjamin! Great question. Countable strives to be non-partisan in all of the write-ups, summaries, and explainers we do. Personally, I agree with you that tech has taken an entirely too slanted approach to civic engagement. Countable is trying to be different in many ways, but one of the biggest of which is that we're just going to provide the facts in as non-partisan a manner as they present themselves. We just brought on longtime NPR Capitol Hill correspondent Andrea Seabrook to head up our editorial team to help, too: https://medium.com/countable-voi...
I'm so excited about this release, I can hardly contain myself. The power of getting an alert of an upcoming vote on a bill and the ability to then immediately call your lawmaker with one click of a button and tell them what you think is so important and critical. And then, of course, you can send an email, or a video or post to your lawmakers social media. All from the app. Democracy FTW.
Jason, I get a confirmation screen that I have sent a message to my rep. How can I view the message that was sent? Or how do I know the content of the message? I wasn't prompted to enter content, which was helpful, but I'd like to see the wording. Thanks for the great product!
@sponselli Hi Christina! This is actually something that's in the works currently. We're going to be providing better mechanisms for users to be able to see *exactly* what was sent to their reps. In the meantime, we have some documentation that provides a little more insight: http://help.countable.us/knowled...
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