Social Media

I partake in social media almost everyday. We all do. It’s not just Facebook or Myspace as many of us first imagined. And it’s not just blogs and Twitter.

Social media ranges from social networking sites, like the above mentioned, to reference sites like Wikipedia and even entertainment found in games like Second Life. There is a long list of social media that has only recently expanded. Social media is seeing a shift from the way we once gathered information through monologues into a dialogue in which the information gatherers directly communicate with the information providers.

We are now forming relationships with social media. These relationships can be business or personal. We are able comment on someone else’s blog or blog our own thoughts. Blogging our own thoughts is what the video ‘Social Media in Plain English’ refers to as ‘making our own flavors’.

Not only are we able to create, we are able to learn from others just like us with their reviews and ratings. It is easier for us to find what we want with websites like MouthShut.com and Yahoo! Answers. This idea of feedback and dialogues did not always exist. According to an article in Business Week, the social media has significantly expanded in the last three years and is what they consider “nourished by users.” In the article, they discuss how consumers are using blogs to communicate and refer to them as ‘the most explosive out break in the information world since the internet itself.’

Social media can be broken into sections. These sections include communication, collaboration, multi-media, reviews, and entertainment.

Communication refers to the nine million blogs currently out there, the micro-blogging sites like Twitter, and the social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. These are all user interactive and in most cases a dialogue can be created.

Collaboration sites include Wikipedia in which the users submit content, or StumbleUpon where users can rate sites. This is taken directly from the websites ‘about us’ section: "StumbleUpon uses / ratings to form collaborative opinions on website quality." They directly refer to themselves a collaborative form of social media.

Multi-media consists of sites like YouTube, Flickr, and imeem that are created to provide a platform designed for sharing. Users are able to upload videos to YouTube to share with the world. Flickr allows you to upload photos and video that can either be shared with everyone or kept private. imeem is a site that supports viral content sharing like videos and music and is completely free to users.

Sites with the purpose of informing through reviews would be Mouthshut.com and eopinions.com. These sites allow users to review topics ranging from airlines to washing machines.

Entertainment in social media can be found in games like Second Life or World of Warcraft in which the players are connecting to other players through the internet. This connection allows for a dialogue between the players.

Everywhere we turn, we are taking part in social media. Whether it is commenting on a friends picture on Facebook or Tweeting our whereabouts to all our followers (uh, how cult like does that sound?) we are all participating.