Leave it up to Obama to be the first presidential candidate ever to announce his running mate for the 2008 election via text message. While it is pretty cool, we can’t be too surprised. After all, Obama’s also the only candidate actively (keyword: actively) engaging in social medium like Twitter (he’s currently following 61,292 people and has 58,650 followers — and is now the most popular, according to Twitterholic, surpassing Digg founder Kevin Rose). To put this into perspective, our amazing Managing Editor Joshua Weinberger is a ravenous consumer of all that is Web 2.0 (so much so that his love for it can substitute both sleep and food!) and even he only follows 184 people and is followed by 200.

Lured by the idea of being “the first to know,” consumers — aka potential voters — are asked to provide their email, name, ZIP Code, and phone number. I was so close to hitting the “Submit Form” button, but stopped when I read that I would be receiving periodic updates in addition to finding out who the VP nominee will be, and that standard SMS rates would apply. So whereas I may not care to sacrifice 10 cents for something I could get for free seeing as I’m more or less attached to my computer 24/7, for those who do, this channel will likely prove to be extremely valuable.

Urgent and portable are the two real keywords when it comes to an SMS campaign, said RJ Talyor, product marketing manager at email marketing service provider ExactTarget, in a phone conversation I had with him earlier today. Avoiding any political commentary, Talyor certainly commends Obama’s use of SMS. “Subscribers are providing their permission, actually signing up to receive alerts from [Obama's campaign]. So he’s providing exclusive content to those subscribers and it comes in real time.”

Obama, Talyor notes, has also been using SMS for sending out messages alerting subscribers to his television appearances — a marketing tactic NBC is also using to alert viewers 30 minutes prior to the start of an Olympic event. While SMS is still preferred as a peer-to-peer channel, it’s definitely improving its worth when marketers know how to use it correctly. Moreover, Talyor adds, “these bigger venues for SMS certainly are going to bring attention to it.” Nevertheless, he says, “the ultimate measure is whether or not the marketers are making money on it,” and a key component there is that, “marketers continue to know that the subscribers rule.”

UPDATE: A text message sent just after 3 AM Saturday, August 23 revealed that Delaware Senator Joseph Biden is Senator Barack Obama’s running mate in the 2008 presidential campaign.

Read what the The New York Times Bits had to say.

[UPDATE, 11/4/08: As we cruise into Election Day, thought we'd update the current count for @barackobama at Twitter:
Followers: 113,829    -- the second-most popular account (@kevinrose) is more than 43,000 followers behind.
Friends: 118,096]