The Thanet Star

PC adviser needs to take advice.

According to an article published in July 2007 (yes, last year). Thanet has but one MySpace profile.

"But Lowther in Cumbria, Attleborough in Norfolk and Thanet in Kent each have just one MySpace user.

This proves either that a combination of the delights of small-town England and the scarcity of rural broadband make MySpace less than compelling in the sticks, or that country-folk are too busy distrusting strangers and maintaining a tiny gene pool to learn the intricacies of online social networking.
"
Matt Egan, pcadvisor.co.uk, "MySpace UK has 10 million users." Thanet one, July 10, 2007


Quote aside from the insulting tone used I can point you to two Thanet Specific Social Networks on ning.com alone, not to mention the crusty looking Planet Thanet Chat which has been kicking about MSN Groups for donkey's years. Then we get right to MySpace itself and here is a profile Google says is from thanet so I take it that this and this and this too are just or is it that Matt Egan has all the investigative skills of a dead hamster?



Given the evidence of the fact that I can name ten people in Margate alone that have held a MySpace account for over a year I am going to have to assume that the advice of Mr Egan is not "advice you can trust" as falsely advertised on the top of the website. He might think that he was "only blogging" but 130,000 people in Thanet and a lot more in the rest of Kent were, sooner or later, going to ask what exactly he is paid a wage to do if he can't even carry out the easiest of research by typing two words into Google.

I'd forgive him on not identifying all the profiles that I did but the ones that say "I live in Cliftonville" or "I am in Margate" really give the game away. Did he think that with a user name like Thanet Sponge the user came from Paris?

Thanet is not a backwards farming outpost. We may no longer be able to rival Blackpool due to our collective inability to elect a council capable of actually getting things moving again but we are far from dead, inbred, "country folk" and unless you count distrustful of strangers as inviting the whole of China to do business with us you really are on a loosing streak with those words bub".

Admittedly did chime in with a comment seven days after publication (well done that ) but it does not fail to negate the fact that Matt Egan missed a fantastic opportunity to highlight how utterly diabolically rubbish organisation and data mining still is at MySpace. Sadly Thanet Star will not be inviting him to guest write anytime soon but I understand that his reporting skills are sufficient for a number of local publications...

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Public Comments

adem wrote:

I read this article when it came out and I just ignored it because I knew it was blatantly wrong. I've had a myspace account for years (although I barely use it), but just because he read some data which said Thanet had 1 myspace user, it was foolish to accept that a face fact.

As you pointed out, a simple bit of googling and you come out with quite a few.

It is also rude to say that the reason there is only 1 Thanet Myspace user is because we are backwards. It is more than likely because we have good taste and know that Myspace is a terrible and buggy site.
09/01/2008 13:17:32

Matt B wrote:

Terrible and buggy is putting it mildly.

Am I asking much that reporters carry out the scantest and simplest of verifications using five minutes of their time? If I can do it surely they can to?
10/01/2008 10:16:36

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