iPrez: Obama releases app grassroots organizing app

Get-out-the-vote campaigns have been cellphone-based for some time now. So what makes more sense than leveraging iPhone cool to put a calling app right on people's phones? That's what the Obama campaign did today, News.com reports,with an iPhone app that "organizes and prioritizes your contacts by key battleground states, making it easy to reach out and make an impact quickly."

A "get involved" feature uses the phone's GPS-based location sensing to find the nearest Obama campaign headquarters, and "local events" likewise pulls up a list of activities sorted by proximity.

A "media" section provides links to video and photos, but beware: YouTube showed errors following some of the links. Perhaps the newer videos hadn't been prepared for iPhone display yet.

The app is also notable for its social-networking aspect, Steve O'Hear says:

The application will also keep a score of how well you’re doing (the number of calls initiated through the Obama for America app), anonymously of course: “Your privacy is important: no personal data or contacts will be uploaded or stored. Only the total number of calls you make is uploaded anonymously.”

While there's no McCain-branded app for iPhone, there are plenty of other election apps, ComputerWorld notes:

Campaign, for example, provides a customized newsfeed from various sources specifically related to Democratic and Republican news coverage. Congress+ provides users with a detailed list of U.S. congress members, including contact information, biographical data, campaign and opponent information and more. Elections lets users browse and assess information not only about the presidential candidates, but those running for Congress, state legislatures and gubernatorial seats. ElectionMap lets users view current trends and poll predictions, while Days to Election Day details how soon voters can cast ballots. And Poll Tracker uses data from Pollster.com to track McCain and Obama's polling numbers.