From Kristi Miller,
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2008/08/23/MN2812GSC3.DTL
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Saturday, August 23, 2008 (SF Chronicle)
Obama's smart call: seeking cell phone numbers
Matthew B. Stannard, Chronicle Staff Writer
Obamamaniacs breathlessly awaiting a text message with their candidate's
vice presidential choice might not realize it, but the shiny bait of being
among the first to know lured them into handing over something of real
value: their cell phone numbers.
Obama's use of text messages could be a political benchmark like Howard
Dean's use of the Internet as an organizing tool.
Obama's campaign has long collected cell phone numbers, said Mark
Blumenthal, editor and publisher of Pollster.com. The announcement Aug. 11
that Obama's choice would be released by text message to anyone who signed
up for it expanded that effort.
The immediate effect is to make people feel they are personally involved
in the vice presidential choice, said James Katz, director of the Center
for Mobile Communication Studies at Rutgers University.
"This notion that there is sort of a mystery and the mystery is going to
be revealed ... is capturing some of that magic to get people involved in
a very personal way," Katz said.
That's powerful, said David All, a Republican consultant who blogs at
www.techrepublican.com. During a meeting with field representatives of one
of his clients, the College Republican National Committee, All said that
he asked how many had signed up to be notified of Obama's pick. About
one-fourth of those present raised a hand.
"These are die-hard Republicans, so you can imagine how many independents
and fence sitters are now signed up and waiting for Barack Obama," All
said.
And that, All said, leads to the larger point: Whatever buzz Obama is
creating now will fade once he reveals his choice for running mate, but
the collection of mobile phone numbers will be there for the campaign to
use.
"His opt-in e-mail list is 10 million large, which is tremendous," All
said. "And now he's probably got a million cell phones, which is
incredible."
An Obama spokeswoman declined to say how large the list of cell phone
numbers actually is, but outside experts said the database collected by
the campaign will be critical in a close race.
"People have given him a relatively personal and very direct means of
getting in touch with them. It's not a piece of information that exists in
other databases," said Michael Dimock, associate director at the Pew
Research Center.
Mobile phone messages can be effective, said Aaron Strauss, a doctoral
candidate at Princeton University whose research showed that
text-messaging an individual could increase that person's likelihood of
voting by four percentage points. And the cost is cheap - about $1.56 per
vote, versus about $67 per vote by direct mail. Text message fees are
partially paid by the recipients.
"You have to keep in mind that the most powerful social network people
hold is that 20 or 30 people in our phone we call the most often. Tapping
into that social network ... would be an incredible accomplishment, even
if it was just a half a million or a million people," Rosenberg said. "A
million people can then go out and reach another 20 or 30 million people."
GOP lags in online outreach
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