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Obama campaign SMS effort suffers outage

By Nisheeth Mohan

On Oct. 28, it appeared that the Obama SMS was out of action for about 14 hours (8:00 p.m. to 10:00 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time). The outage was experienced across multiple carriers.

While the impact of this outage one week prior to the election will probably be negligible, a similar outage tomorrow, on Election Day, could have much more real consequences.

The Obama campaign has shown innovation in using new technologies that resonate with a younger audience. It's widely believed that they will use their database of names for a final get-out-the-vote push.

If the final push is to have an impact, it won't be realized should the texts not get through.

SMS is a great mass communication tool. However, SMS communication is prone to failure at much higher rates than we have become accustomed to by more traditional means.

Any campaign, or retailer for that matter, who takes advantage of this popular medium should pay attention to its implementation and execution, remembering that it is their name riding on every 160-character message.

Keynote Systems tested the Obama SMS every hour by sending the word "HELP" to the short code 62262 (OBAMA) and waited 90 seconds for the reply "Obama for America."

The test was conducted from San Francisco and New York over the AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, and Verizon wireless carrier networks. Keynote will continue to monitor the SMS for the final week of the campaign.

The Obama campaign drew a lot of attention when it used SMS as the first vehicle to announce Sen. Obama's vice presidential choice. In doing so, traditional communications outlets were shown the back seat to a relatively new way of spreading the word.

The campaign has been quick to adapt to the modern era of communications and advertising. It has generated quite a bit of buzz with SMS, the wired and mobile Web, and more recent advertising on video games.

Not only did the Obama campaign get free publicity, the SMS campaign delivered millions of names to its database for future communications geared to keep the energy level up.

However, the VP announcement illuminated an area of concern for anyone interested in setting up a short code campaign -- they don't always work.

Keynote monitored the Obama short code in the period leading up to the vice presidential candidate announcement and found that as many as 40 percent of the messages failed altogether or did not complete within a predetermined amount of time.

Whether receiving breaking news from a campaign, buying a ring tone or entering a contest via short code, users have an expectation that if they do "X" they will receive "Y." If those expectations aren't met, the user experience is less than optimal and can leave a bad taste.

The great thing about SMS is that you can contact millions of people all at once. The bad thing is that you are contacting them all at once.

That text message can pass through several hands over multiple carrier networks before it reaches its target and must traverse equally as many entities to get the response back.

While a single SMS isn't overwhelmingly complex, sending huge volumes in one instance can quickly result in problems.

A wise SMS campaigner or marketer must make sure that all pieces are in place and functioning properly for the life of the campaign.

Fortunate for Team Obama, any lift they get from SMS is gravy as their opponent doesn't seem to have a program in place -- if they do, it's the world's best kept secret.

The Obama campaign's use of new media is also noteworthy in an environment when fewer people are depending on television and newsprint to get information.

We may look back on this election as one where communication history was made. Marketers must look at this shift in communication strategy and understand how their businesses will be affected.

More importantly, they must understand that the efficiencies gained with new technologies come at a price. SMS campaigns require an additional level of oversight. A carefully orchestrated campaign should not be left to chance.

Nisheeth Mohan is product manager for mobile solutions and technology at Keynote Systems Inc., San Mateo, CA. Reach him at .