Clinton, Obama And Edwards Using Text Messaging On Campaign

advanced34    Cell Phones, Technology, Text Messaging     Clinton, Edwards, Obama, Presidential Campaign, sms promotions

Seems text messaging has caught on in the Campaign for Presidential Nominee. The major players in the race for Democratic Presidential Nominee have each embraced new technology as a means of self promotion. SMS a.k.a. text messaging has emerged as a key tool in this election.

Hilary Rodham Clinton announced in May that she would use SMS to garner support for her campaign. The “mobile-to-mobile text-messaging push” targets the 230 million Americans who use cell phones. Her efforts signal she is hunting for every possible vote in her battle for top nominee spot against rival Sen. Barack Obama. Supporters of Clinton can send the word “JOIN” to short code 77007 and will in return receive updates and news, as well as personal messages and photos focused on the area they live in. Clinton wants to use the technology to provide more personalized updates to supporters nationwide. Clinton also wants to encourage voters to add their opinion and steer them toward her website from their mobile web browsers.

In the last week of June, Barack Obama announced the launch of an SMS service for his presidential nominee campaign. Supporters send the word “GO” to the short code “OBAMA”(62262). Users can request information from the campaign, find out when the next important public appearance is, get speeches sent via text and submit their opinions and advise. Obama wants to build on the grassroots volunteer network as part of his campaign push. The campaign will also provide ringtones and wallpaper with an “Obama theme”.

It was John Edwards however, who was the first in this Presidential campaign to use SMS technology. Last year Edwards launched a site dedicated exclusively to tracking and posting his text messages while he travels around the country looking for support. The site is updated constantly and displays both the time and date that the text was sent from Edwards’ phone. The site also includes a daily short code that users can use to receive updated information on his campaign, in addition to brief campaign platform issues.

Relevant Facts and Figures

* There are currently 236,000,000 cell phone users in the U.S. — 76% penetration.
* 10.5% of homes in the U.S. are wireless only (projected to be 30% by end 2008)
* In December 2006 alone, there were 18.7 billion text messages sent — up 92% from 9.7 billion in December 2005. 195 billion for the year
* In the first six months of 2006, the number of subscribers to two-way SMS (text messaging) grew by 88%.
* According to the NPD Group, by mid-2006, 42% of all wireless subscribers used their wireless phone as their primary phone.
* By the middle of 2006, almost half of wireless customers in the U.S. were using some form of wireless data — surfing the wireless web, sending text and photo-messages, or downloading and playing games, ringtones, or music files.

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