Yes We Can… If Your iPhone is in Coverage, that is.
by Ewan Spence
You have to hand it to the US Democrat campaign. Their recently released phone book application for the iPhone is a master-stroke for the Obama campaign. The message of change that he is promoting to the electorate now has a delightfully new mobile component.
Writing a new phonebook application is a popular past-time for developers on PDA platforms (just count the number of alternatives on the Palm Pilots), this app has a different message to deliver – Vote For Me. And it does it in a very effective way. By listing your friends in the order of importance in the campaign (ie those in states where the vote is close are listed to the top), it not only gives users the feeling of engagement in the political campaign, but it also ‘calls back’ to the campaign HQ and lets them know how many calls have been made (but not passing over any contact details).
It’s a lovely little idea, and one that seems to fit with the ‘fresh air’ that the Obama candidacy is trying to portray. This is one of the most social applications I’ve seen in a long time. It takes your own personal relationship with people, and then leverages that to help someone else. No matter where you are on the political spectrum this is a cute idea.
Why stop when you’ve made an impression on the voter. It also takes positioning info and points you to a local campaign organisation or events that are nearby. Sometimes it’s not the message that counts, it’s the delivery.
You can be sure that future campaigns around the world will use similar tools, especially when they are looking to do grass roots motivation, so the politicisation of the phone is now here. Whether any of them will make a practical difference to the result remains to be seen, but for now, hats off to the Democrats. Now if they would ship this for a phone that has a wider user base in the swing states…
Download the app yourself from the iPhone App Store.
