Obama asks for Gustav help via text message, the RNC gets started, Twitter at the DNC, Palin uses eBay, Alaska's blogging industry, and Palin's e-family drama

There was little sign of the Obama campaign's vaunted world's largest phone bank at Invesco Field at Mile High on Thursday night, but the campaign did manage to score a few points by asking attendees to whip out their cell phones. According to Obama's Colorado campaign chair Ray Rivera, a contest that asked those at the event to text in a message of support to 62262 (which, naturally, spells "OBAMA" on a standard keypad) net the campaign tens of thousands of cell phone numbers in a matter of a few hours.

Liveblogging the DNC; sleuthing out McCain's VP pick; Sarah Palin will make these bloggers happy; Get your ObamaTaxCut.com; McCain's classy and messy moves; Obama's text-messaging machine revs up.

Just like 3 million other Americans, I signed up for the Barack Obama campaign's now famous VP announcement text message. But once I received it, albeit at 3AM, what caught my attention was not the Senator's selection of Joe Biden but rather a confirmation that the worlds of technology, media, and politics were merging even faster than I had previously thought. At the end of the short 160 character message was an invitation to watch the Democratic candidates first joint appearance together, “Watch the first Obama-Biden rally live at 3PM ET” not on CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC, PBS, or C-Span but “on www.BarackObama.com”

When it finally arrived, I was disappointed. Barack's team missed an enormous opportunity to communicate personally, to me, from Barack.

Let me explain to you where I'm coming from...

Shortly after 3 AM on the east coast, the long-awaited text message from Barack Obama announcing Joe Biden had finally arrived. But it was something short of letting the cat out of the bag. At 10:50 pm on Friday night, ABC News confirmed that Biden was getting Secret Service protection. The first official confirmation that I could find came from CNN at 12:45 a.m. The promised "be the first to know" text message came a full two hours later.

#1 Digg video is anti-McCain voter-generated content; Facebook (anti-)campaigns for Vice President; C-SPAN gets searchable, linkable, AND embeddable; Convention website showdown; NYTimes Op-Ed on the power of text messaging; McCain's tech policy (lack thereof); Organizing tips for #dontGo

Obama texts his supporters his choice of VP, is Obama the first "cybergenic" candidate?, What will McCain do for VP?, Obama hits back at two McCain ads, the blogs respond to Edwards' extramarital affair, Bush enjoys women's beach volleyball, and Barack gets "Rick Rolled"

A new study indicates that text messaging can increase youth voter turnout; the Huffington Post/Yahoo/Slate mashup debate is rolling, and it turns out we can use Jumpcut to edit the footage after all, but we're somewhat disappointed with its format and execution; CBC radio produces a great piece featuring an interview with techPresident's Micah Sifry; and will Ron Paul be elected President of Web 2.0?

Justin Oberman’s post on the Edwards campaign’s recently launched SMS fundraising campaign prompted a series of questions from fellow TechPresident contributor Colin Delany about the ability of other candidates to replicate Edwards success.   

In response to Colin's questions, I was contacted by Edwards' Deputy Director of New Media Amy Rubin. She provided responses to Colin's comments. I have assembled his questions, her responses, and my commentary into this virtual interview.