Did you know Visa has an NRA-branded credit card? Neither did I. Even more surprising, the accompanying app has been jumping up and down the iOS App Store rankings.
The NRA Visa app climbed to the 69th spot in the top free finance apps on iOS, a 139-spot jump, based on data from AppShopper.com. There wasn’t much to explain the boost — the app came out March 31, and hasn’t received an update since. It’s never been on the top 200 list on AppShopper.com, so this was the first time the site’s collected data on the NRA Visa mobile app.
The NRA Visa mobile app is basically like every other credit card app —it lets users check their balances, make credit card payments, check statements, etc. — except it’s only for the NRA-branded Visa card issued by First BankCard in Nebraska. The jump was noteworthy since the second-place app “only” rose 60 spots. There must be a lot of people in Nebraska who are big NRA advocates.
Eventually, the app fell back down to 138th place and is now out of the top 200. But the unusual spike in popularity, especially for a free app that promotes gun rights, is weird. There was no update or change in the app; usually big app updates spur growth. Not only that, but free apps don’t usually rise and fall as rapidly as the NRA Visa app did.
Did the NRA try some promotion so people would get an NRA Visa card? And then why did the app drop just a few days later? We may never get the answers to these pressing questions, but an app about gun control is probably one of few hot-topic issues that can have such a rapid change in popularity.