One lesson from the 2004 campaign that seemed to resonate was the concept that text messaging – those little 160 character messages people get on their cell phones – was not a very effective mechanism for the campaigns. At ETCon in 2004, Trippi mentioned his frustration in using mobile communications during the campaign – and I can personally can discuss the frustrations with it on our own mobile site (mobile.johnkerry.com).
But interestingly enough, I do not believe this is a problem of technology – I believe it was a problem of being ahead of the curve. And from information I have been getting from other sources, the Republican Party is beginning to build TXTing into their process of managing their field organizers for the upcoming elections.
In a recent conversation with
At the other end of the spectrum, we have the president of Korea elected by a combination of a “citizen reporter” Web site, AllmyNews.com, and people using e-mail and text messages to coordinate get-out-the-vote efforts. When they put a call out literally during the election that their candidate was losing in the exit polls, they got out to vote and hit that election. In Spain, there was the terrorist bombing, and the elections several days later, in which there were official government-organized demonstrations followed by self-organized demonstrations. They were organized by SMS and may well have tipped that election.
While the campaigns did not find it a strong tool, rumours have it that the RNC is investing in text-messaging services for it’s 2006 and 2008 efforts. As text messaging grows (100 Billion Messages Sent By UK’s Texting Generation As Texting Hits All Time High), domestic examples mount (TXTmob: Text Messaging For Protest Swarms), and US users are beginning to get a handle on it’s use – can the Democrats and other campaign coordinating services leverage the instant, distributed nature of text messaging to coordinate it’s efforts?
