The Democratic National Convention added a new tech component on Thursday. A map of the U.S. was put up on the JumboTron, and from there Ray Rivera, the Obama campaign’s Colorado chair, dared everyone in Invesco Field to text to 62262 (“OBAMA”, for those of you not caught up). Every text is attached to a state and area code. Stars on the map lit up, pulsed, and grew bigger and brighter with every text message. The more texts attached to a particular area, the bigger and brighter the star. The Obama campaign has done an admirable job in taking advantage of tech-savvy voters, while incidentally collecting a dragon’s hoard worth of new cell phone numbers.
Over the weekend, those cell phone numbers were put to use by the campaign. One of them asked me to donate to the Red Cross in preparation for Hurricane Gustav. I’m looking forward to seeing what the Republican strategy for new media tactics will be, considering the Obama campaign has pretty much taken the text-field advantage. (–Amanda Clemens)
Originally posted September 2, 2008 at PolicyByBlog