You know it’s a new era when a US Presidential candidate plans to make a major announcement using a new technology. The campaign of Barack Obama has announced on the blog for its social network that it will be announcing Obama’s Vice Presidential running mate first by mobile text message and email. John McCain doesn’t even know how to use a computer.
Is This Kitschy?
Yes. Is it cool, too, though? We think it is. This author signed up for the notification without a moment’s hesitation. We learned about the announcement via the company blog of Kwiry, an SMS reminder service we’ve used in the past.
Will it Really Be First?
Surely there will be media trying to break the story before the official announcement. Will the public really find out first by SMS, as the campaign says? We’ll be watching Memeorandum (the political sister site of TechMeme) as well and wonder where we’ll find out first.
We expect that if many people do learn about the selection by SMS first, it will likely be an emotional moment that helps advance Obama’s mindshare at the very least. Nothing is as immediate as SMS and we think it’s a wise move politically to spend political capital like this, in a nod to the new generation of communicators.
Compare This to, Reportedly, The Next McCain Ad
From Politico.com, this apparently official McCain ad speaks for itself. This isn’t for real, right?
