Author: David Perlmutter

The Democratic National Convention added a new tech component on Thursday.  A map of the U.S. was put up on the JumboTron, and from there Ray Rivera, the Obama campaign's Colorado chair, dared everyone in Invesco Field to text to 62262 ("OBAMA", for those of you not caught up).  Every text is attached to a state and area code. Stars on the map lit up, pulsed, and grew bigger and brighter with every text message.  The more texts attached to a particular area, the bigger and brighter the star.  The Obama campaign has done an admirable job in taking advantage of tech-savvy voters, while incidentally collecting a dragon's hoard worth of new cell phone numbers. Over the weekend, those cell phone numbers were put to use by the campaign. One of them asked me to donate to the Red Cross in preparation for Hurricane Gustav.  I'm looking forward to seeing what the Republican strategy for new media tactics will be, considering...

“That’s one small step for man and one giant leap for presidential campaigns.” The Obama campaign started phase two of a plan to use the vast networks of text messaging to campaign. As people filled into the seats of Invesco Field at Mile High Thursday night, they could not help but look at the giant US map proudly displayed on the Jumbo Tron. Obama’s Colorado campaign chair Ray Rivera told the audience to text their messages of support and encouragement to Obama to 62262 which, to no surprise, spells “Obama.” As the text messages flooded in, the map began to change. Every text racked up a counter for a city; as more texts came from a city a star grew where their city is located. The Obama campaign was not just providing a way to let its supporters show their city and state pride, but was building an even larger database of easily accessible phone numbers. Along with building this database it...

The famous (or depending on who you ask, infamous) Grand Old Party is an aging party. The party that once prided itself on its affluent, 20-something voting base has now become the party of stodgy, old white men. The 20-somethings now are increasingly identifying with the Democratic Party. Why? Policy issues aside, the Democratic Party, and more specifically presidential candidate Barak Obama, has done a great job using new communication technology advancements towards its advantage. One needs to look no further than Senator Obama’s text message announcement of his running mate in late August. Although some criticized the text message as a failed stunt, many young voters and statistics firms saw it as a success. In the age where young people are the communication technology early adapters, it really seemed like a no-brainer for the pre-2006 minority party to seek out new or disenfranchised young voters by using early adapters’ kryptonite – Web 2.0 technologies. (more…)...

As bloggers gained their “Blogger’s Lounge” at Pepsi Center located down the hall form dressing rooms for the television networks at the United States Democratic convention 2008, ‘Qikkers’ ,the users of a new widget called Qik, also broadcasted live videos from Denver in real time. Qik is a content syndication app that consolidates and streams live video from wherever directly from their cell phone as mobile phone users capture it using Qik's phone to web service. As Qik's CEO Ramu Sunkara suggested: "Now, Qikkers streaming live from the DNC can connect with an even wider audience. Combining Qik's live video service with NewsGator's broad syndication power gives bloggers at the DNC unprecedented reach." (http://www.newsgator.com) “Just as TV coverage of the presidential race gained its power with the televised debate between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon in 1960, Internet blogging seems to be coming into its own in 2004.” (Marsha Walton,CNN) For the first time, the Democratic National Convention and the Republican...