Walking Edge: The iPhone app that killed Coakley

Published Jan 21 2010, 09:41 AM by Carly Carioli

This week on ThePhoenix.com, David Bernstein has a must-read piece about the ways in which the Scott Brown campaign learned from the Obama campaign to flip one of Massachusetts biggest political upsets ever.

One example that Democratic activists are already taking note of is WALKING EDGE, a new GPS-enabled smartphone app modeled on the one the Obama campaign released at the tail end of 2008 -- except that this one appears to be smarter. Via the Atlantic:

The application works on smartphones that have GPS capabilities--Blackberries and iPhones, for instance--and it uses a Google Maps-based setup that lets canvassers see the addresses of nearby voters whose doors they can knock, plus specific information about those voters.
Canvassers can update the database of voters as they canvas; other canvassers using the app can then see, in realtime, if an address has been contacted. Workers stationed at polling places can use it as well, checking off voters from the field database as they vote, preventing canvassers from uselessly knocking on their doors.

The app was developed by a consulting group, Republican Web Development, founded by former John McCain advisors -- who appear determined to not get fooled again on the new-media front. It's being rolled out to "Republican candidates and select independents," according to the Atlantic. The Coakley campaign had its own mobile strategy, of course -- but when Talking Points Memo gave it a shot, they got error messages.