Could cell phones help a San Antonio candidate win in the May 9 election?

Alan Weinkrantz's column in today's San Antonio Express News highlights the roll out of cell phones as the ultimate communications tools.   Noted Weinkrantz, the dean of San Antonio technology public relations experts, "According to (Jeff) Pulver, our wireless devices, from a simple cell phone to the iPhone, are morphing into social communications tools. Just take a look around you and watch how your children, friends, families and co-workers are using text to communicate."

Tim Hanson, another public relations and marketing colleague, told me last week that there are 2.4 billion cell phone users and that 74-percent of them have texting capability.  Twitter, that much respected social media, has about 3.4 million users, according to Jeremiah Owyang, a Silicon Valley based web strategist.

I am working with the folks at CrossLink Media to help promote the use of phones as the next social media tool.   Together, we're working with the leading San Antonio mayoral candidates and some of the city council candidates to provide a working demo of the phone as a way for them to reach their voting base.

One candidate is working with CrossLink's wireless phone applications to get voters to register before Thursday's deadline for the May 9 election.   Barack Obama used a similar tactic in the 2008 presidential election to get his voters to ask their friends and relatives to vote for him.

Getting the vote out is important for these mayoral candidates.  Al Franken, the humorist and Democratic candidate from Minnesota, won his first state election with only a margin of 221 votes.   A San Antonio mayoral candidate may need a smaller margin just to win.   With access to the billions of cell phone/text users, the mobile messaging system available from CrossLink may help them win the election.