Social media differs from the traditional media with it unique feature of ‘openness’. Media of the old times are mostly one way sharing of information. Broadcasting television video or audio are not that interactive as the online media we have today. Social media is particularly interactive sharing of information in words, pictures, videos and audio.
The below listed are some important characteristic of social media:
- Involvement- the wall between media and the audiences is transparent
- Openness- no password protected content, everyone is able to give feedback
- Discussion- social media is two way sharing thus interactive
- Community- encourage grouping people of common interest
- Connectedness- relations (for e.g. Worked together) connects people making a social graph
Today we have different kinds of media in our life and we are growing the overall social graph by joining such media especially the social network. Following is a list of social media type with example
1. Social Networks- These are the media platform where we are connected with people for sharing and communication. Examples are FaceBook, LinkedIn and MySpace.
2. Blogs- Blogs are cheap media to share information. Everybody can have blog today with free provider like BlogSpot from Google or TypePad from SixApart.
3. Podcasts: Podcast were first introduce by Apple and are popular audio media found online. For e.g. we can find as many podcast from here.
4. Forums- Forums are traditional and most used media for discussion. BoardTracker is a comprehensive search engine to search discussion that monitors over 40,000 forum
5. Content Communities- These are the platform targeted for sharing of media of particular kind. Popular one is Flickr for sharing images, YouTube and Hulu for sharing videos, Delicious for sharing bookmarks.
6. Collaborative Platforms: Wikis are the most popular in this kind of media that shares knowledge and information both. It gives people to add or edit content. The most popular one is Wikipedia which has more than 2 million articles added by the public.
7. Micro Blogging: Micro Blogging was made popular by Twitter which is an integrated platform of social network and blogs which usually provides users to update content from wireless devices. Some examples are Yammer, Jaiku and Pownce.
Social media are the platforms that are never going to fade away. Enjoy your life.
(8 votes, average: 4.5 out of 5)
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November 22nd, 2008 at 2:22 pm
The question is not whether social media will survive or fade away but “whats next” and perhaps more importantly “when will it burst; remember internet bubble”. Personally I believe social media development has hit its peak in terms of technological innovations. Technologically I do not see any earth shattering concept coming by any time soon but rather the focus has shifted in maintaining one of the important facet of social media that bring people back: freshness.
Gadgets, Widgets whatever you call it, is key in delivering the social experience of being able to share. The mode is survival and the key is “open”; the battle of opening up to the developers in an attempt to maintain the freshness and therby having a chance of survival; while exploring ways to generate money. The challenge: not to be too greedy and maintain loyal user base (its easy to forget where you came from). The battle: who attracts more developers i.e. who is truly social.
November 23rd, 2008 at 7:08 pm
I love your site, I have addeded it to my bookmarks and will come again soon. Keep up the good work.
November 25th, 2008 at 9:49 am
Shailesh,
Those are the brilliant points you are talking about. However two kind of users, the developers and social media marketers may make the difference in the degree of being applications social.
I agree that attracting developers is key.
December 1st, 2008 at 1:15 am
Excellent Article, I like it.
December 5th, 2008 at 3:35 am
Social Media has added another level to marketing / advertising. One in which the “big boys” are struggling to compete.
The little guy has more leverage than ever before in history. The transition period of change in marketing ideals is now!
December 7th, 2008 at 8:11 am
I just ran accross your blog and am impressed. Keep up the good work.
December 13th, 2008 at 9:47 am
[...] virtual world with our belongings and identity or more specifically we are now part of the internet social media. All they pose the characteristics that many talks about what web 2.0 platform should have? Still [...]
December 18th, 2008 at 10:35 am
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