CNN just reported more numbers on Obama's online contacts. For context, CNN quoted a Pew survey, that this election cycle digital interactive media (internet and mobile combined) had become the most widely used information source - used by 46% of the voters to gather information on the campaign. Cable news came in second, at 39% of voters. Daily newspapers were used by 34% of the electorate, and network TV news was last of the four major groups, used by 29% (obviously multiple sources could be cited at the Pew study, as the totals are far more than 100%).
So yes, the internet and mobile were the most used source for news about the campaign. It does not surprise us and our regular readers, but now we have also concrete numbers.
Now, onto Obama's campaign. CNN reported a moment ago, that on MySpace Obama had 4 times as many friends than McCain, and Obama had 3 million contacts via Facebook. Obama's campaign had 10 million email addresses of his supporters. Bearing in mind that his total voter turnout was about 65 milloin people, this means almost one in six voters had given Obama an email address. This was radically different - and far more powerful - than communicating in old-fashioned ways via phone calls (or snailmail). Because sending emails is free to the campaign; because sending and email news update to the full mailing list can be done by one person in one action, where a call to ten million people would require 10 million individual calls which then mostly would arrive in voicemail (or to use robo-calls, which would not be warmly received as positive campaigning by a candidate). Furthermore on emails, the recepients could receive them at their leisure, and concentrate on the email, rather than be interrupted by a phone call when having dinner etc. And finally, most importantly, the emails could then be forwarded to further Obama supporters..
Same is true of SMS text messaging, and we've learned that the Obama campaign sent regular SMS updates to all who gave mobile numbers. Unfortunately CNN did not report on how many mobile phone numbers the campaign had finally collected.
But yes, this is a very modern and connected President-Elect. Now they've launced their official website and CNN even reported that President Obama will have a tech advisors in the White House, the geek-in-residence if you will, ha-ha.. A very good sign indeed.
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