Obama and Romney Campaigns Adopt Square for Funding

Social media was a game-changing technology that helped alter the course of the 2008 presidential election. In 2012, mobile payments could be the transformational technology, as millions of political supporters are given the ability to collect money on smartphones for candidates.

On Jan 30, President Obama’s re-election campaign announced that it would immediately begin using Square, a mobile payments start-up company based in San Francisco, with campaign staffers and some approved volunteers. “Squares are being sent to our campaign offices across the country,” said Katie Hogan, a spokeswoman for Mr. Obama’s re-election campaign. The announcement is just the first part of the strategy the Obama campaign plans to employ for mobile donations over the coming months.