Nielsen: Obama’s Biden announcement delivered to 2.9M cellphones
August 26 2008 - 2:07 pm EDT | Gary E. Salazar | RCR Wireless News
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Barack Obama has added one more record to his historic bid for the White House.
Nielsen Mobile estimates that 2.9 million mobile subscribers received the Democratic Illinois senator’s text message announcing Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.), as his choice for VP, according to a news release.
Nielsen Mobile said the amount of messages that were sent out Saturday and Sunday is the single largest mobile marketing event in the United States to date.
The Obama campaign and Distributive Networks, which is the company handling Obama’s text messaging initiative, have declined to say how many messages were sent.
Nielsen Mobile, which is a service of the Nielsen Company, said it was able to calculate its figure because it can monitor shortcode marketing for a panel that reports on the billing activity of 40,000 mobile subscriber lines in the country. The campaign’s shortcode is OBAMA (62262).
Nic Covey, Nielsen Mobile director of insights, said the Obama text message ranks as one of the most important that has ever been sent. The campaign was also able to establish a database of cellphone numbers for supporters and potential voters, who signed up to receive Obama’s VP selection via a text message.
Steven Weber, a political science professor at the University of California Berkeley, said it will be interesting to see if the text messaging campaign has an impact on the November election. He called the Biden text message a “gimmick.”
“It was probably good” for the wireless companies, Weber said.
September 4, 2008 07:23 pm
Well, I rather be awaking in the morning to be told that I could be given a better chance at life here in the US. Then to be remind everyday that our current president is a joke in the afternoon. Man, the bush party did make us a little weak when it comes to demanding for a better chance for EVERYONE! We been whip, whip real good!
August 26, 2008 02:22 pm
What??? Osama's Bin Laden?
August 26, 2008 02:22 pm
The text only got sent out because someone leaked the story to MSNBC around 12:30am. I thinking the Obama camp didn't want you to hear it from TV but from them. Since most of you turn on your cell phone before you turn on the TV, it was a good way to beat them to the punch. Also, as DRipper mention above. If Obama campaign would have waited until busy hour, most of us would have gotten the text message at different time intervals. The goal was for all of us to find out the same time.
August 26, 2008 02:22 pm
Spam??? Most people willingly signed up for this, I believe.Did not enjoy being disturbed at 02:38 AM? Then why did you sign up? Or, why didn't you turn the phone to vibrate or off completely? Either you wanted to get the message, or you did not. And, if one wonders why the message was sent out so early in the morning, being a reader of RCR, I would think that one would know that these hours are the least busy of the day. Just saying:)
August 26, 2008 02:22 pm
Spam by any other name will still be spam. (Credit Monty Python)
August 26, 2008 02:22 pm
I wonder how many people enjoyed being awaken at 2:38 AM in the morning to get this message....I did not....