• October 1, 2008

When Barack Obama announced the selection of Joe Biden as his running mate by sending text messages to 2.9 million supporters, it wasn't just a publicity stunt. Mobile media is more popular among Democrats than Republicans, according to research from Nielsen Mobile.

Specifically, 62% of Democrats use one or more data services on their mobile phones, compared to 55% of Republicans. Democrats are also more likely to use text-messaging (53% compared to 46% of Republicans) and the mobile Web (17% to 13%).

"Though the differences may not seem great, these variations indicate that advertising across mobile channels tends to be more efficient at reaching Democrats than Republicans," stated the Nielsen report.

That isn't to say that conservative voters can't be drawn to mobile media. The right-leaning Drudge Report, for instance, attracted a mobile Internet audience of 567,000 unique users per month as of July 2008, according to Nielsen.--Mark Walsh