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Barack Obama has chosen his running mate — and if you were among the millions that registered to receive updates via text message and email, you've probably known since about three AM EST on Saturday morning, which is when the texts went out.

Traffic on Sprint's short code for the Obama campaign (O-B-A-M-A, or 62262) rose over 250 percent within an hour of the announcement, the Washington Post reported.

Obama reportedly chose his running-mate on Thursday. The lucky secondante's identity was meant to remain secret until early Saturday morning, when users that registered to receive a text-message would purportedly be the "first to know," according to the Obama campaign. And while the media managed to break the news in advance of the candidates, Obama nonetheless compiled a massive database of mobile numbers and email addresses — useful ammunition for the November election.

Not without cost. Silicon Alley Insider calculates that even if Obama paid as little as 5 cents per message, texting three million subscribers would have cost $1.35 million. (The figure of three million subscribers is an estimate by the Wall Street Journal. The campaign did not reveal the number of texts it sent.)

Still, Obama's contact list is one many marketers would pay dearly for. Obama fans are young, politically passionate and digitally savvy, with the means to access millions like them via word-of-mouth.

The coveted fanbase is the fruit of a year of aggressive marketing by Obama's online team, which encouraged youth to register for the text program. Other perks, besides learning "first!" who Obama's running-mate would be, included ringtones and mobile wallpaper. Names, numbers, email addresses, and zip codes were scrupulously collected.

Many registrants had to wait up to 12 hours after the media broke the news before their messages arrived. Still, few seemed upset. Co-founder Micah Sifry of TechPresident, one of the unfortunate 12-hours-later recipients, dismissed it thus: "Whatever you think of when it was sent, you have to admit this was a really smart way for the campaign to get thousands, if not millions, of numbers. Texting is a huge new tool."