Ivan Stojanovic

The Good: Personal Web site joehiggins.eu
Twitter statistics: Following 244, Followers 163
Blog- With posts since January 2009!
Facebook
YouTube
Flickr
Bebo
MySpace

The Bad:
No LinkedIN Profile.

Conclusion:
The Blog might not be nice, but it’s certainly a work of a professional blogger. The sheer amount of social networks accounts is again a sign of a professional on duty here. The Social Bookmarking plugin for WordPress is a clear give away! Well done! But it could be nice in the same time, couldn’t it?

From Joes web site about himself:

Joe Higgins is a long time activist in the labour and trade union movement. Elected to Dublin County Council in 1991, he was a leading fighter against corrupt land rezoning in Dublin and for planning in the interests of communities rather than for speculators and major developers.

Joe Higgins was the Chair of the Federation of Dublin Anti Water Charges Campaign which won massive support and forced the Fine Gael/Labour Government to abolish water charges in December 1996. Minister for Social Welfare, Mary Hanafin, said last year that had abolition not happened, each household in Dublin would be currently paying €700 per year in water charges.

Joe Higgins was elected to the Dail in 1997 and for the next ten years was a leading opponent of the right wing policies of the Fianna Fail/Progressive Democrat Government. He frequently challenged the then Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, on a wide range of issues including land speculation and profiteering in the housing market, Government support for the invasion and occupation of Iraq and in defence of workers’ rights.

In 2003 Joe Higgins was sent to Mountjoy Jail for a month over his opposition to Bin Tax, a new stealth tax on Dublin householders.

In 2005, with the Socialist Party, he exposed the horrific abuse of migrant workers by Gama Construction and struck a major blow against the ‘race to the bottom’ when that company was forced to pay unpaid wages of around €30million to its workers. (See Documentary “The GAMA Strike” here)

Joe Higgins was a key Leader of the opposition to the Lisbon Treaty last year because it would facilitate further privatisation of crucial services like Health, push the militarisation of the EU, increase arms spending and institutionalise the right of bad employers to attack agreed wages and conditions for entire industries.

The Good: Personal Web site derossa.com
Twitter statistics: Following 18, Followers 58
Blog exists
Facebook

The Bad:
No LinkedIN Profile
Flickr – just links to Labour Party Flickr account.
The blog is actaully just a page called a ‘Blog’. It is not a reall blog actaully at all.

Conclusion:
Some elements of an online campaign exist. Like Facebook account and Twitter. Even something called a ‘Blog’ is there. But all of those elements are kind of ‘half hearted’ attempts. The Blog is not really a blog. Twitter account has minimal visibility and is just made of tweets like: ‘read my statement on …’, as opposed to the real twitter discussions. There is a feeling that the online pre election marketing campaign is done on a minimal budget, without any input from an expert in any of the relevant online marketing fields.

From Proinsias De Rossa on his web site:

Europe’s task is to provide solutions for ordinary people. It must offer answers for those
• Young and old whose wages and jobs and homes are under pressure

• Whose savings and pensions are exposed to the market meltdown

• Whose essential services from healthcare to childcare are the first to be cut

• Who are deeply worried about their future and that of their children

As we face into this recession, I believe Europe – a revitalised Union of Member States, committed to cooperating to solve problems – is more important than ever.

It is clearer now than it has been for a long time that Labour, and our Socialist colleagues in Europe, is correct when we say we must have an economy that serves society, a social market economy. For 15 years politics at European level has been dominated by doctrinaire conservative economics and politics. But it does not have to be like that. We can re-launch the European project to achieve fairness at home and in the world at large. In Ireland that means voting for the Labour party – at Council level, for the Dail and for the European Parliament.

The last time there was a global economic crisis of this magnitude was in the 1930s. Then, like now, it was ordinary people who suffered – whose homes, livelihoods and futures were on the line, even though it was not of their doing. That experience, followed by a world war, taught millions of Europeans that we can only prevent these problems by working together at the European level. And that realisation, in turn, gave rise to the European Union. The doctrinaire conservatives, Thatcher, Reagan, Bush etc, fought back and we have had in more recent years a return to a dog eat dog economics, and we all can see where this has led.

We can turn this crisis around providing that Ireland and the other European states co-ordinate our policy responses, ensuring that as many people as possible can hold onto their jobs, homes, decent incomes and pensions, while providing adequate support for those who are thrown out of work or lose pensions. This is also the occasion to put in place sufficient regulation so that citizens are never again left to the greed of the bankers and speculators.

Our task now is not only to rebuild our economy. We must also rebuild our community based on fairness and solidarity. In Ireland that requires investing in social and in physical infrastructure. It requires investing in people, and above all investing in our children, their care and their education, guaranteeing their future, not destroying it.

This is the approach I have taken in the European parliament up to now and which I hope to continue in the next parliament with your support.

Proinsias De rossa MEP
Labour party/Socialist group

The Good: Personal Web site deirdredeburca.ie
Twitter statistics: Following 711, Followers 491
Blog- 20ish updates allready (all in latest 2 months).
Facebook
YouTube – 44 Videos
LinkedIN Profile

The Bad:  Poor LinkedIN Profile.

Conclusion: Good Facebook and two sites deirdredeburca.ie and whatistandfor.ie. Twitter with actaul folowers, YouTube with 44 entries, and even Flickr used show the existance of an online strategy.

A message from Deirdre de Burca from her web site:

Welcome to What I Stand For…

You are very welcome to my European campaign website ‘www.WhatIStandFor.ie’. My name is Deirdre de Burca and I am the Green Party MEP candidate for Dublin in the 2009 European elections in Dublin on June 5th. This website aims to let you know what I stand for as a MEP election candidate in Dublin and to explain the importance of having Green MEPs in the European Parliament. The videos on this page tell you about some of my main campaign themes – creating Thousands of new Green Jobs for Dublin, giving More Power to Irish Voters in Brussels, and creating A City that Works better for all Dubliners. I will use my MEP position in the European Parliament to promote economic recovery in Ireland, bring much greater levels of democracy to the EU and make Dublin a greener city, and Ireland a better place to live and work. Please watch my videos below, enter my competition , let me know what you think, and vote for me, Deirdre de Burca on June 5th 2009 as you Dublin MEP candidate in the European Parliament.