What is Social Media?

In order to explain social media more clearly I shall use a definition from one of the most well known social media websites, Wikipedia.

social media describes the online technologies and practices that people use to share opinions, insights, experiences, and perspectives with each other.
Wikipedia

The following quote also explains social media well.

“social media is … a way of using the Internet to instantly collaborate, share information, conversations, ideas or causes we care about. Its a world where anyone can be a publisher, a reporter, an artist, a filmmaker, a photographer or pundit…”
Beth Kanter

Web 2.0

The term social media is also closely linked with the phrase Web 2.0, which was coined by O’Reilly Media in 2004. It refers to a perceived second-generation of Web-based services that emphasize online collaboration and sharing among users.

Though the term suggests a new version of the Web, it does not refer to an update to Internet or World Wide Web technical standards, but to changes in the ways those standards are used.

Several technology experts, most notably Tim Berners-Lee, have questioned whether the term is meaningful, since many of the technological elements of “Web 2.0″ have been present since the creation of the World Wide Web.
Wikipedia

How does it differ from traditional media?

The best way to understand social media is to compare it to whats come before. This is best illustrated by taking a look at the media you already have lying around your house. These would probably be the following:

• Newspapers.
• Magazines.
• Television.
• Radio.
• Books.
• CDs.
• DVDs.
• A box of photos.
• Physical, paper mail and catalogs.
• Yellow Pages.

So what are some attributes of social media that are different than any of the Old Media above?

Typically the media above cant be changed. A newspaper cant magically change its stories, even if society decides something in them is incorrect. However a blog for example can be updated for all readers nearly instantly if the author decides something was initially incorrect or needed editing.

Readers can interact with social media applications. They can leave comments on blogs, add or edit content or post video for example.

You can get some sense of the popularity of articles and blog entries in real time. How many comments does each post get? How many links does each post get? You can also visit social bookmarking sites such as Digg to see the most popular items. None of the traditional media listed above allow you to have such an immediate idea of how popular they are until much later. For example when a best seller list is published.

On many social media sites you are able to mix media. A blog entry could contain text, audio, video, or photos. Not so in newspapers or magazines.

One of the most popular parts of blogging is the fact you dont need to convince a committee to publish. There are significant barriers to publishing content in Old Media. For example you couldn’t just walk into ITV or CNN and said hey, I have some cool video, can you publish it?

Key examples of social media applications

There are now literally hundreds of successful social media websites on the internet but to give you a practical understanding I have listed some of the largest players in this area.

Wikipedia

A free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Wikipedia is written collaboratively by volunteers from all around the world and with just a few rare exceptions, its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the Internet.

MySpace

MySpace is an American based social networking website offering an interactive, user-submitted network of friends, personal profiles, blogs, groups, photos, music and videos internationally. According to Alexa Internet, MySpace is currently the world’s fifth most popular English-language website and the fifth most popular website in any language

YouTube

YouTube is an American popular free video sharing website which lets users upload, view, and share video clips. Videos can be rated, and the average rating and the number of times a video has been watched are both published.

The wide variety of site content includes movie and TV clips and music videos, as well as amateur content such as video-blogging (vlogging) and short original videos. Currently staffed by 67 employees, the company was named TIME magazine’s “Invention of the Year” for 2006. In October 2006, Google Inc. announced that it had reached a deal to acquire the company for US$1.65 billion in Google’s stock. The deal closed on 13 November 2006.

Second Life

Second Life (abbreviated as SL) is an Internet-based virtual world which came to international attention via mainstream news media in late 2006 and early 2007. Developed by Linden Lab, a downloadable client program enables its users, called “Residents”, to interact with each other through motional avatars, providing an advanced level of a social network service combined with general aspects of a metaverse. Residents can explore, meet other Residents, socialize, participate in individual and group activities, create and trade items (virtual property) and services from one another.

Of particular interest is Second Life’s virtual currency which is called the Linden Dollar (Linden, or L$) and is exchangeable for US Dollars in a marketplace consisting of residents, Linden Lab and real life companies.

While Second Life is sometimes referred to as a game, it does not have points, scores, winners or losers, levels, an end-strategy, or most of the other characteristics of games. In all, more than five million accounts have been registered, though many are not active, and some Residents have multiple accounts.

Digg

Digg is a community-based popularity website with an emphasis on technology and science articles, recently expanding to a broader range of categories such as politics and entertainment. It combines social bookmarking, blogging, and syndication with a form of non-hierarchical, democratic editorial control.

News stories and websites are submitted by users, and then promoted to the front page through a user-based ranking system. This differs from the hierarchical editorial system that many other news sites employ.

Flickr

Flickr is a photo sharing website and web services suite, and an online community platform, which is generally considered an early example of a Web 2.0 application.

In addition to being a popular Web site for users to share personal photographs, the service is widely used by bloggers as a photo repository. Its popularity has been fueled by its innovative online community tools that allow photos to be tagged and browsed theme.

Conclusion

We have talked about what social media is and how it differs from traditional types of media as well as given some key examples of what a social media site is. There’s no doubt that social media has radically changed the face of the web and how we interact across it. However only time will tell whether it is here for the long term and many experts are already talking about what web 3.o will herald ( if they can agree what it means of course. In the next article we will be looking at “social media Optimisation” (SMO), how it differs from traditional SEO and what difference it can make to traffic to your website.