Disclaimer: While I am an Obama supporter and really appreciate that his campaign is the one that’s finding new ways to leverage technology (and in turn engage new groups of voters), the features that make this app is so great are smart in and of themselves.
Back to the app!
I can’t say enough about how impressed I am with the Obama ’08 iPhone app (iTunes link) that was released yesterday. The thoroughness and the polish really shows how a political process so often stuck in the past can really be revolutionized in 4 short years.
My favorite things about the app:
- Sorting your contacts by battleground states first and noting whether or not I’ve called them yet
- Leveraging location to help you find local events, debate watching parties, etc.
- Well-organized display of where BO stands on all the major issues making it dead simple for people to educate themselves (and in turn, educate others)
- Persistent, easy (almost too easy) way to donate
- Easy access to national, state, and local news regarding the campaign
There are, of course, other features that you’d expect: sign up for alerts + watch videos (I’d like tighter integration with the video player a la MLB At Bat).
Anyway, I highly recommend you check it out to get a glimpse at how politics (and political movements) are changing in a way that, I imagine, no generation before us has witnessed.
Read more about it here.
Now I’m going to go back to my side of the aisle real quick…
I tweeted about this yesterday but I enjoy imagining what features a quickly hacked together McCain/Palin iPhone app might have: A random newspaper name generator? “Places one can drill” game? 101 ways to work the word “maverick” into a sentence? What else?