Quantifying the impact of social media on the 2008 election | Social Signal

The Washington Post's Clickocracy series has a piece on the Obama online campaign, and while the exclusive interview and anecdotes are well worth reading, it's the numbers that really tell the story:

• 3 million online donors.
• 6.5 million online donations.
• 6 million online donations under $100.
• $80 average online donation.
• $600+ million raised, most of it online.
• 13 million addresses on his email list.
• 7,000 different email messages sent.
• 1 billion total emails sent.
• 1 million text-message subscribers.
• 3 or more text messages to every subscriber in a battleground state on Election Day.
• 2 million profiles on MyBarackObama.com.
• 200,000 offline events planned.
• 400,000 blog posts written.
• 35,000 volunteer groups created.
• 3 million calls made on the virtual phone bank in the campaign's final four days.
• 70 million personal fundraisers on MyBO.com.
• $30 million raised by personal fundraisers on MyBO.com.
• 5 million supporters in other social networks.

This is a campaign that embraced social media with a vengeance, and social media clearly returned the favour.