At 3:42am Eastern time on Saturday morning, I got a text message from the Obama campaign: "Barack has chosen Senator Joe Biden to be our VP nominee. Watch the first Obama-Biden rally live at 3pm ET on www.BarackObama.com. Spread the word!"

All very cool, except I had already known for two hours, and not because I was staking out Biden's house along with CNN. I was just watching CNN. To me, it was another case of "grasstops" campaign tactics from a political operation. Pretend to be all people-powered, but in the end, it's politics as usual. And now Barack Obama has my cell phone number, and I'm going to get lots of solicitations. Great for him; a letdown for me. I live in a blue state – my biggest use to the campaign is as a money source. I accept this as part of the game, but I'm still a sucker for anything that smacks of an inside scoop.

In an op-ed in the New York Times, Garrett Graff wrote recently of Obama's promise to announce his VP pick by text: "The ploy may seem silly – the fad candidate adopts the latest tech fad – but it's an important part of one of Mr Obama's most under-recognised campaign efforts."

I asked Garrett how he felt about Friday night's outcome: "Obama missed a great opportunity to create a national moment as supporters got their text messages, got excited and told their friends. He promised this announcement would be different, and the campaign failed to live up to its promise – that's not a good foot to start off the fall campaign on. He needs to give his supporters ownership, and this time, he blew it."

Indeed, less than two weeks ago, Obama's campaign manager David Plouffe assured supporters that they would be the first to know who Obama chose for his VP – via text. I worked for John Kerry in 2004, and we announced the John Edwards VP pick to our supporters via email, then the grassroots technology du jour. We were scooped by the press, but not by much. The emails were cycling through the queue on a Tuesday in July. It felt like a victory for the millions of grassroots, online supporters, although I don't think it was ever recognised as such.

On the blog TechPresident, Republican strategist David All summed up the Obama text effort in one word: "Disappointing."

Yes, the mainstream media scooped the netroots again this time around. The McCain campaign tried to make this about campaign rivalries, as it crowed in a press email:

All three networks had confirmed his choice of senator Biden before midnight. And then at 3am, the text messages started going out.

By all accounts, Hillary Clinton was not vetted for the second spot, nor was she consulted by the Obama campaign on who should be taken – not even as a courtesy. If she had been the pick, the 3am text message might have had some real resonance – a signal that the two had put a tough campaign behind them in order to work together on the serious issues the next administration will have to deal with.

But what's with holding the text message until 3am for Joe Biden? The only explanation that makes any sense is that Team Obama just couldn't resist one last dig at Hillary.

I think that's probably giving the Obama folks too much credit. The reference to the infamous primary cycle ad wars between Clinton and Obama (It's 3am. Who do you want answering the phone in the White House?) is for political junkies alone, and a snarky one at that.

But there is real implication for the mainstream in Obama's failed text message ploy. Yet again, the technology that empowers the 24/7 news cycle competes with the promise of the netroots. This is a serious challenge for a campaign like Obama's, which relies on its email list for money. Low-dollar fundraising is a careful balance of give and take. I'll give you some money if you make me feel important and useful. That's why non-profit and political fundraising campaigns rely on "match" contests and end-of-quarter drives: my small donation feels that much more important when people on the inside take notice.

Now, most political laypeople expect Washington to be an inside game. But if you keep promising us access and then not quite getting there, we will lose hope. Garrett references "ownership", and this is a key element to the digitally powered campaign. At the core of any successful fundraising messaging is a message of ownership: the donors make the difference. Defy this, and the magic fades. Not to mention, we'll be much less reluctant to give out our cell phone numbers.

Just as I was wrapping up this piece, though, I got a lovely little message from Joe Biden, titled "Hello." Loved it. Going to give some money now. Thanks, Joe.