MiCandidate.eu not to be used by RTE

RTE tonight confirmed that they will not be using data from MiCandidate.eu in their online and on-air coverage of the Local and European Elections. RTE will be using their own data with regards to coverage of candidates, campaigns and results.

Sky News yesterday confirmed that they also are not using the company or it’s content for online coverage of European Parliament Elections.  This follows confirmation from the Irish Times revealed here last month that they had ‘no arrangement of any sort’ with MiCandidate.

As has been documented extensively both here and elsewhere candidates in local and European Elections have been sold the MiCandidate Pro package with promises of inclusion on the most popular websites in the state.  Remember the whole point of the licencing that MiCandidate promised was that candidates would gets lots of hits and would be seen extensively throughout the Irish web as well as giving candidates a web presence – incluidng blogging, youtube and twitter accounts.

So in my (not so humble) opinion if you are a candidate who paid €250 plus €35 or €99 per month on the basis of sales pitches which said that the information would be available and used by RTE and the Irish Times you may get your hand out to ask for your money back.

PS: To those people who paid you may like to know that those who have not yet signed up have been promised their money back if they do not win their seat – that might also be important to have in your back pocket as you email MiCandidate asking for a full refund.

I and other bloggers have been sent emails from candidates where the commitments and promises were made. Press releases were issued by MiCandidate.eu announcing the use of the site and the data by companies and we were told that the company were seeking High Potential Start-Up status from Enterprise Ireland.

From a press release dated March 26

RTÉ, the Telegraph, the Independent and TV3 are some of the many media organisation who have today confirmed that they have chosen to use miCandidate.eu for their election coverage. From April 15th thousands of candidates profiled on the miCandidate.eu website will also appear on dozens of Ireland’s and Europe’s most popular news websites..

So in the space of  seven weeks

• Sky News have said they are not taking part.
• The Irish Times have said that they have no agreement.
• RTE have confirmed that they are not involved with the company and using their own data.
  
• Confirmation on the status of the Telegraph and Independent is awaited.
• The traffic to TV3’s site if they are using the site would be very limited.

Bloggers attended events where logos of the various media companies were used in presentations.  Interviews were given and recorded and candidates have spoken widely to bloggers and other candidates about the sales pitches.

Of course the strategy of MiCandidate has been to ignore the fact checking and questions from bloggers or even prospective customers. Or to talk about the 22 local papers who have are using the ‘iframe technology’ provided by Micandidate.eu  Hardly the audience of RTE, Irish Times of Sky News now is it?

But wait there’s always the Union of Students in Ireland? Yes that’s right some student organisations and other websites will be using the information so maybe their visitors (who’ll not be living near (ie. in a position to vote for!) people like Margaret Connell from Granard running for election to Longford County Council.) That’s a lot of money paid out to be seen by so few.

If you didn’t pay your money but filled in the forms in the hope your voters would see your basic information you will obviously be dissappointed. But your campaign may be a lot better off finanicially and it seems there are and will be a lot of other free sources of information online about candidates that don’t promise the earth only to provide planets in other galaxies.