I have heard people say that if Barack Obama does not win the election,  he should start a social network.  While people are saying this statement, tongue in cheek, there is certainly cause for these statements.

I recently downloaded the Barack Obama iPhone and I have to say, it is brilliant. It hits some core elements that every app should possess:

1.       Added Value (content)

2.       Local Updates (events, news etc.)

3.       Social Networking Capabilities

The third point is where Obama’s strategist really hit the nail on the head.  By taking advantage of the most social element of the most social device of all (the phone) Obama’s team created an app where, passing along information for a cause can become a badge of honor.

Team Obama incorporated the users phone book data, parsed it into states (brilliant) and encouraged users to call others to get them to vote Obama. It is so simple, but I have yet to see an app (let alone a branded app) take advantage of the iPhone in this manner.

It just goes to show that creativity prevails above technology–it was not the iPhone that made this initiative a smart was, it was the creative folks that concepted it.

images from CNET