Use of Mobile in the 2008 US Election
While we have already seen candidates in past US Presidential elections utilize the internet, mobile has become significantly more important than in previous election cycles. This has as much to do with shifts in consumer behavior as it does with new campaign strategies. While Americans were early adopters of the internet, a large part due to the telecommunications infrastructure in place, they had much slower uptake of mobile data services in comparison to peer countries in Western Europe.
The most intriguing use of mobile services during the current campaign was the announcement of Barack Obama’s Vice Presidential pick. While this would have been a first of its kind announcement, the anticipated 3M+ text messages had trouble being delivered and many went out late (http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/obama-text-message-promise-proves-unworkable/2008-08-25). I believe it is less of an indictment of the concept and more an issue of the vendor’s attempt to run mass messaging. (ed note- I really hope the emergency notification service works better than this). Another interesting thread is the sale of mobile content for the candidates John McCain and Barack Obama. As reported by the content aggregator Thumbplay, content such as realtones (high fidelity ringtone) and wallpaper have been selling almost 9 to 1 in favor of Barack Obama (http://www.fiercewireless.com/press-releases/obama-or-mccain-thumbplay-com-could-hold-answer-0?utm_medium=nl&utm_source=internal&cmp-id=EMC-NL-FMC&dest=FW). I am not sure this translates into a real comparison as to how people will vote since Thumbplay’s customer base is predominantly between the ages of 18-34 and live in metro areas which would skew to the profile of the average Democrat voter. Regardless, these are interesting uses of mobile and show how the use of mobile data services is continuing to mature.
Do you have any stories regarding the use of mobile for election purposes? Please share them.
