Nearly 3 million received veep text

By Michael Kranish, Globe Staff

Barack Obama's text message announcing that he had picked Senator Joseph Biden as his running mate was sent to 2.9 million people, making it one of the most widespread in the short history of the medium, the Neilsen Company said today.

The Obama campaign had said those who signed up for the text message would "know first" about Obama's selection. But it was scooped two hours earlier by leaks to the media, and it roused more than a few Obama supporters from their sleep because it arrived at around 3 a.m.

But the Obama campaign believes it was a success because they collected the phone numbers of so many supporters, which it is expected to use to solicit more active support and to remind people to go to the polls on Election Day.

The Neilsen Company, which is best known for its ratings of television viewership, did not provide an estimate of how many people were awakened by the text message, saying that the message went out throughout the weekend.