Advocacy

Text messaging is the most successful product to have emerged in the 30-year history of the mobile phone industry*

...The next wave of advocacy enabling technology will be the intelligent use of SMS text messaging.

Mobile is not the "new computer"...it's not even the new phone, at least when it comes to sending and receiving text messages. This first text message was sent in 1995 and just about every phone since then has been SMS capable.

Nor is Mobile the "new internet." It is simply a new, portable and lightweight way to access the Internet, which in turn, will completely re-conceptualize the way in which we think about the Internet.

Why will the mobile phone be one of the chief tools for successful political candidates and advocacy campaigns for 2008 and beyond?

• Rapid delivery of communications that are read almost immediately; this makes the cell phone unquestionably the delivery platform of choice.
• It is nearly ubiquitous—near 100% of your target audience carries a cell phone
• Messages can be immediately actionable—in a way that direct mail never has or never will.
• The cell phone is a communication device; the computer is primarily an information device...talk to people and let them talk back immediately, by the thousands.
• It's private, it's THEIR phone, messages don't end up on a corporate computer network. SMS enables the delivery and receipt of information when people want it with a level of privacy they desire.

Read More

• Taking Advantage of Mobile
• Fundraising
• Many Benefits

* Source: Gartner Report 12/14/2006