Tag Archives: Facebook

➤ Rusty Egan: next stop, St Leonards-on-Sea?

Posted on 5 Dec 2022 | 1 comment

Egan onstage at the Palladium in 2019: video grab by Willy Billiams

David Johnson, editor of Shapersofthe80s, writes:

❚ OVER THE PAST COUPLE OF WEEKS the musician Rusty Egan has aimed a stream of potentially defamatory abuse against me publicly online and in emails, questioning my motives as a journalist, all fuelled by his imagination rather than fact.

In order to protect my professional reputation in the eyes of colleagues in the national media, I had, in correspondence with him and his manager David Japp of Lookbook Ltd, demanded Egan withdraw his accusations and apologise by midday today. A simple apology at Facebook would avoid consequent legal action via the courts, yet no such undertaking has been received. Both men have rejected my emails, while Egan has blocked me at Facebook.

Never mind… We’ve had a glorious bright autumn morning here in London with the trees finally stripped of their canopies and the grass bright green underfoot… So it would be a shame to spend another penny on this dismal dispute. Contrary to his recent observations, Egan’s contribution to the Eighties as a clubland innovator is well documented here on this website. As for recent years, let’s say that recollections differ, and you can gauge for yourself his progress on his page at Wikipedia.

Only the other day he was feeling wistful about taking a comfy retirement in St Leonards-on-Sea with a Rusty dog for company. Who knows…?

➢ Previously at Shapersofthe80s: 2013 – Visage: out of the 80s frying pan into the 21st-century fire

➢ Previously at Shapersofthe80s: 2019 – Ever wondered how Rusty Egan does what he does?

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Posted in dispute, journalism, Media, Pop music

Tagged David Japp, Facebook, LookbookLtd, Rusty Egan

➤ Inbetweeners, bring your wellies — Christos hits the cutting-room floor and he’s gutted

Posted on 6 Aug 2011 | Leave a comment

❚ THE INBETWEENERS MOVIE opens on August 17 in the UK, but apparently without Christos Tolera, actor, socialite and in the 80s singer with the Latin combo Blue Rondo à la Turk. He’d been cast in a wonderful cameo role in the film of the TV series — until this Wednesday, when he made this tear-stained announcement on Facebook …

“ My agent received a call today from the producer on The Inbetweeners movie. Having been featured in the trailer for the last month, been inundated with messages of people having seen it, i was today informed i have been cut from the movie due to time constraints. If you were planning to see this film to see a glimpse of me, don’t bother. Gutted. ”

So for all of his fans the video above has rescued that lost scene, cut from the latest trailer as well as the movie. But it is dedicated especially to Christos himself, as a tribute to a man who has entertained us in so many ways over 30 years. His co-stars are Blake Harrison as Neil and James Buckley as Jay, from the C4 TV series The Inbetweeners. The film sees the four 18-year-old lads who are its stars heading off to the buzzing resort of Malia, one of Europe’s hedonistic hotspots for mainly young British tourists on the Greek island of Crete.

The Inbetweeners Movie, Jay, James Buckley , 91Kristie

In Malia: Jay spots Kristie behind her camera

The new official trailer isn’t worth the celluloid it’s printed on (*spits*), but the locally shot video by Malia TV [below] gives the flavour of the place. A second clip is a gem shot by a British holidaymaker called Kristie who caught the film crew at work on main strip, Malia Beach Road. It’s pretty obvious that Jay (left, in red) has spotted the girl behind the camera, and she’s definitely in with a chance ;)

❏ FOOTNOTE — Who have Facebookers voted “Hottest Girl From The Inbetweeners”? Answer: Neil’s sister, closely followed by Will’s Mum.

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➤ Facebook may well be the mother of all networks but one man needs to check his maths

Posted on 26 Oct 2010 | Leave a comment

❚ HALF A BILLION USERS “IS JUST A BEGINNING”. So said Colm Long today as Facebook director of online operations for Europe, in a video interview with iMedia, organisers of a London conference. In July the so-called “mother of all social networks” claimed its global audience of active users had grown from 150m to 500m [ie, half a US billion] in less than a year. Today Long claimed 26m of them were UK members which he described as “55% of the population”. This is of course total tosh, since 26m of the actual UK population of 61.79m comes out at only 42%.

If by any chance he meant the UK online population of 38.8m active web users [source, UKOM], including the 2.3m under-12s, his claim works out at an astonishing reach of 67%. (Remember that, according to Ofcom, nearly 40% of British households are not connected to the internet.) Either way, to maintain his credibility as a director of Facebook, Long needs to go back to his abacus.

In the video, Long speaks as he finds: “What we’re seeing is a dramatic shift of people bringing their real-world identities online… The fastest growing demographic is 35-plus, so it fundamentally changes how people think about social media. What’s more, you know these people are their authentic selves… sharing authentic information about themselves.”

UK web audience, UKOM/Nielsen,UK population,household income

Source: UKOM/Nielsen

Well, “authenticity” on the web is a pretty cloud-cuckoo concept, but we’ll let that pass. Elsewhere UK analyst Nigel Lamb has aggregated statistics for eight social networks, and deduces that one-third of Facebook’s UK members have household incomes between £30k and £50k, which would reflect its gradually ageing membership, and make advertisers smack their lips.

In America, Long says, Facebook has just launched an e-commerce platform to facilitate a payment infrastructure for members running businesses on the network. In terms of e-commerce, he believes, the half a billion “is just a beginning”.

➢ VIEW today’s interview with Colm Long at iMedia UK
➢ Even more riveting stats about Facebook at Manchester SEO

❏ For example — Average user has 130 friends… The United Kingdom has the second highest number of Facebook users (5.54% of global audience) … 51.8% are female, hence 48.2% are male… The most popular brand pages in the UK are: Starbucks, Vodafone, BlackBerry, Espirit, Xbox.

➢ Hitwise charts for top UK sites and search engines

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