Dude, Where's My Text Message?
First to know? Not quite. The best new media campaign in history botched their attempt to keep a lid on the VP pick in order to announce it via text messaging. It turned out to be just too difficult to keep quiet. However, although it was - technically speaking - a risky endeavor, the campaign strategy of collecting phone numbers for text messaging use passed with flying colors. Buzz was everywhere all week about receiving the VP announcement on our phones. Around the end of the West Coast work day, Erin Kotecki-Vest tweeted that her mobile text messaging "DING made my heart jump." By then, the process of elimination left many thinking Biden was the pick, but there was no word from the campaign.
Assuming the goal of the exercise was not just to inform supporters, but to mobilize them, the database of SMS contacts is the newest member of the Obama - no, excuse me - Obama/Biden arsenal. GOTV efforts begin in earnest after the convention and text messaging has been shown to be quite an effective tool for that purpose. In the 2002 South Korean presidential election, Lee Hoi Chan held the lead until Roh Moo Hyun supporters sent out text messages and email to 800,000 voters on election day, turning the tides and winning the election by a 2% margin. A survey based on the 2006 election found that voting reminders via SMS produced an increase turnout by 4%. Besides, it's cheaper and people don't mind that it's automated.
After the story of Biden's Secret Service coverage broke, the first tweet arrived at 9:30 p.m. PT. Twitter, as I expected, brought me the first real news. An email flurry followed. Still no text messages. Then the CNN News Alert came in around 9:50 p.m. PT by email. No text messages. Sarah Burris tweeted from Denver that "search.twitter.com has hundreds of tweets in seconds RE: Biden" a half hour later. Not surprising. The Obama campaign was all quiet, but by midnight Pacific, the web site simply read: "Barack has chosen Joe Biden to be his running mate." Sadly, two hours into the text messaging blitz, my phone was still silent.
Supposedly the campaign began sending text messages around midnight Pacific time, 3a.m. Eastern. According to the LA Times, the text message read "Barack has chosen Senator Joe Biden to be our VP nominee... Watch the first Obama-Biden rally live at 3 p.m. ET on www.BarackObama.com. Spread the word!" Finally I received some Twitter action at 2:22a.m. PT with the same message that had yet to come by text. Time for a nudge.
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I live in Calif, I received my text at 1:04 Pacific Time!
What a riot, but so very exciting!!!!!
Peace!
This could have worked, all day Friday from early morning the new media talked about the announcement of the VP, Obama team should have sent out the text right after the evening news. It was clear that the news reporters were doing everything to crack this story. Obama team held on too long, Friday would have been just as good as Saturday.
This was such a brilliant idea. I got my text around 3:18am... I got so annoyed watching CNN have a melt down trying to get the scope which they did around 12:30. The goal was to send the text out early Saturday morning but with reporters trying to get the scope it didn't work.
I want the camp to announce how many people signed up for the text, because i have a feeling its a seriously huge number, and if we think about that is going to be another arsenal in the campaigns ground game.
Imagine 24-48hours before 11/04 getting text messages to remind them to vote...Freaking genius...
My husband thinks McCain should send telegrams!
I got my smoke signal.
I had my phone by the bed and was awoken at 3:05am est by the message coming in. I had a feeling it would arrive during the night and midnight west coast time seemed perfect although it would have also been good to make it midnight in Honolulu given Barack was born there.
the msm really hated being shut out and did their best to play the spoiler, oh well. i got my text just after 3am, and even though i'd heard beforehand i wasn't let down. the mere notion that a political campaign really is intent on involving ordinary citizens as much as possible is great, individual volunteers are a bigger part of this campaign than people realize and hopefully we'll see the real power of these grassroots efforts in november.
And of course, people on the East Coast were sitting their glued to their cell phones at 3AM. I would be willing to bet that a lot of them found that they were NOT the first to know. Why not send it when people were actually awake?
They were going to, but had to go ahead and message when CNN broke the story.
I signed up for the email as I figured it would come same time etc and I would most probably be on my computer. It did irritate the crap out of me that even though the MSNBC, CNN and who knows I don't watch Faux, and the rest of the regular channels had it all over and the internet was the same with all of the potentials being stalked and the houses on continuous feeds showing it was confirmed by un-named sources to be Biden! It was over and over shown as being the real deal and no doubt it was Biden for over three hours at least before the email finally hit my email in box. It would have been nice to have had a "yeah it's Biden" after the majority of the channels had confirmed the Biden select "for sure" hours earlier and just admitted someone could not keep the piehole shut and told the tale. Any drama after the second hour of confirmation reports was totally lost and it just looked like the play it out wasn't but everyone in the whole world knows now and Obama is letting us hang after telling us we would know before the MSM. But when some worms with knowledge turn and tell what they are not supposed to... I would still like the worm who told to be outed for who he is so the person can be slimed with green snot.
I never got my text message. But it's not like I'm so mad I'm going to go vote for McSame. I'm guessing poor old John still thinks a text message involves a telegraph.
Quill and ink?
This is a first time thing - I think it went quite well considering. If you were sitting next to Mr. Watson when Alexander Graham Bell placed the first phone call, you probably would have complained about the clarity of his voice.
I signed up for the email & never got it... but I'm OK with that. There are liable to be some glitches in something so ambitious.
I got mine, but I was asleep. I woke up to it, though. Nice e-mail, and I am glad they waited until Saturday. It was funny watching the media go into a frenzy.
Got mine at 3 AM......it will be saved forever. A piece of history. I love it.
I received my text at 3:28 AM! It is fantastic to really feel that you are a part of history!
I received my text a 1:04 Pacific time!
I was so excited! I will keep it forever!
Peace!
I got my text around 3 am as well. I put the phone on vibrate, so I didn't hear it. But, I got a nice surprise this morning!
Well, this old land-liner was enjoying the whole spectacle. I'd be curious to know where this is all leading.
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