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Obama’s 2.9 million texts create online frenzy

from the Christian Science Monitor’s The Vote Blog

By Jimmy Orr

Obama’s now-legendary text message announcing the selection of vice presidential candidate Joe Biden has been discussed ad nauseum — including here.

Why bring it up again? We know now just how many text messages were sent out.

The folks over at Nielsen tell us that 2.9 million texts were sent out. It sounds impressive. And according to Nielsen, it is:

“The V.P. message was sent in the late hours of Friday night and is, by many accounts, the single largest mobile marketing event in the U.S. to date,” a release from Nielsen read. “While much has been said of the timing and the scoop by news outlets, Obama’s V.P. text-message still ranks as one of the most important text messages ever sent and one of the most successful brand engagements using mobile media.”

Online political pundits agree. This was a success. And if you signed up, get ready for more says the Obama campaign. Nick Shapiro, a spokesman at the Obama campaign told ABC News:

“Moving forward, we’re going to continue to keep our supporters engaged with our valuable two-way communication tool,” he said

This valuable two-way communications tool spawned an enormous amount of media coverage, not to mention the viral conversation it started.

The Obama text underground…

The text event generated a life of its own. Enter “Obama text message” into Google and 983,000 results pop up. It’s a lot of reading but, in short, there are forums, web pages, articles, and even videos discussing the issue.

One of the most entertaining is an account of a fictitious lawsuit against the Obama campaign from an unemployed bricklayer named Manley Scott. In the fictitious (repeated for emphasis) account, Scott didn’t receive the text and filed suit. The article comes complete with fictitious quotes from Senator McCain and FOX News anchor Sean Hannity:

“First he says he’ll send Manley a text message, then he changes his mind and doesn’t,” said Sean Hannity of Fox News, “this kind of flip flopping is proof Obama is not ready to be President.”

“Textgate is a classic example of why Obama is not fit to be commander in chief,” said John McCain from one of his many houses. “When we should be bombing Iran, he would be fiddling with one of those new fangled cell phones, trying to order some arugula.”

Joe Biden in Springfield, Illinois – August 23, 2008

Meet Joe Biden

Obama-Biden Web site on sale for $100,000

From CNN’s Josh Levs

(CNN) – The Obama campaign has succeeded partly through astute, unprecedented use of the Internet. But some of the most obvious Web site domain names for the Obama-Biden ticket might not actually belong to the campaign anytime soon — if ever.

After hearing about Obama’s selection for his number-two slot, anyone who tried to surf to obamabiden.org was re-directed to an eBay page selling that domain name for a starting bid of $100,000.

As of 6:30 p.m. ET, there were no bids listed.

The same seller lists 15 similar domain names up for sale, including obama-biden.com, obama-biden.org, and obamabiden-08.com.

Though the seller does not list his name on the ebay site, he does list it as public information at godaddy.com, where he purchased the site. That site shows that Luke Freudenberg bought the site back in December.

Freudenberg — whose city of residence is listed at both godaddy.com and eBay.com — did not immediately respond to a message sent via ebay or phone messages left on a work number. He does not have a home number publicly listed.

Perhaps the most obvious site for an Obama-Biden ticket, obamabiden.com, is owned by someone else.

Lyle Dean bought that site back in 2006. He also owns obamabiden2008.com.

On Friday, he told CNN’s Abbi Tatton in an e-mail exchange that he has had no offers, but “numerous media inquiries.”

Dean called himself an “enthusiastic supporter” of the Obama-Biden ticket.