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"Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have been pouring money into television \u2014 long considered the most crucial place for a political campaign to advertise \u2014 to the tune of at least $125 million combined. However, Google is urging all political candidates not to overlook the importance of online advertising.\nGoogle released on Tuesday the below infographic which shows how people's appetite for media is changing \u2014 an evolution the company argues means that political advertising should change, too:\nGoogle has been proselytizing the Internet's political potential in \"Four Screens to Victory,\" an informational campaign which began in March. Throughout the campaign, Google has stressed the need for politicians to pay attention to the web and mobile devices, lest their message is lost given the increasing number of people who pay little attention to television in favor of personal computers and mobile devices.\n \n\nSEE ALSO: Google to Political Campaigns: Here\u2019s How You Win\n\"Access to political information no longer comes from one place \u2014 or one screen,\" wrote Google in a blog post on Tuesday. \"In just the four years since the last presidential election, the continued growth of the web and the proliferation of mobile devices has radically transformed when, where, and how voters access political information.\"\nTo support that claim, Google published data about the increasing importance of the Internet and mobile devices vis-\u00E0-vis television, including:\n1. More than 80% of eligible voters are online.2. Similarly, 83% of mobile phone owners are registered voters.3. One out of every 3 likely voters in November say that they didn\u2019t watch television in the past week.4. Voters are spending more media time on their mobile devices than with newspapers &amp; magazines combined.\nGoogle, of course, owns YouTube (a popular platform for campaigns to publish online videos) and sells online advertising, so it has a financial interest in convincing campaigns to bolster their web presence.\nBarack Obama and Mitt Romney have been spending unprecedented amounts of money on digital. A recent analysis by the marketing blog ClickZ found that the Obama and Romney campaigns are spending about 25% of their TV ad budget on digital \u2014 but should they be spending more? Share your thoughts in the comments below.\nThumbnail image courtesy of iStockphoto, pagadesign"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2012/07/24/google-politics/>