SOCIAL MEDIA

Social media is media designed to be disseminated through social interaction, created using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques. Social media supports the human need for social interaction, using Internet- and web-based technologies to transform broadcast media monologues (one to many) into social media dialogues (many to many). It supports the democratization of knowledge and information, transforming people from content consumers into content producers. Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein define social media as "a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content"[1]. Businesses also refer to social media as user-generated content (UGC) or consumer-generated media (CGM). Social media utilization is believed to be a driving factor in the idea that the current period in time will be defined as the Attention Age.

Social media can be said to have three components;


   1. Concept (art, information, or meme).
   2. Media (physical, electronic, or verbal).
   3. Social interface (intimate direct, community engagement, social viral, electronic broadcast or syndication, or other physical media such as print).

Common forms of social media;

    * Concepts, slogans, and statements with a high memory retention quotient, that excite others to repeat.
    * Grass-Roots direct action information dissemination such as public speaking, installations, performance, and demonstrations.
    * Electronic media with 'sharing', syndication, or search algorithm technologies (includes internet and mobile devices).
    * Print media, designed to be re-distributed.

SOCIAL MEDIA EXAMPLES:

Social media can take many different forms, including Internet forums, weblogs, social blogs, wikis, podcasts, pictures, video, rating and bookmarking. Technologies include: blogs, picture-sharing, vlogs, wall-postings, email, instant messaging, music-sharing, crowdsourcing, and voice over IP, to name a few. Many of these social media services can be integrated via social network aggregation platforms like Mybloglog and Plaxo.

Examples of social media software applications include:

Communication

    * Blogs: Blogger, LiveJournal, Open Diary, TypePad, WordPress, Vox, ExpressionEngine, Xanga
    * Micro-blogging / Presence applications: Twitter, Plurk, Tumblr, Jaiku, fmylife
    * Social networking: Bebo, BigTent, Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Orkut, Skyrock, Hi5, Ning, Elgg
    * Social network aggregation: NutshellMail, FriendFeed
    * Events: Upcoming, Eventful, Meetup.com

Collaboration

    * Wikis: Wikipedia, PBwiki, wetpaint
    * Social bookmarking (or social tagging)[6]: Delicious, StumbleUpon, Google Reader, CiteULike
    * Social news: Digg, Mixx, Reddit, NowPublic
    * Opinion sites: epinions, Yelp

Multimedia

    * Photo sharing: Flickr, Zooomr, Photobucket, SmugMug, Picasa
    * Video sharing: YouTube, Vimeo, sevenload
    * Livecasting: Ustream.tv, Justin.tv, Stickam, Skype
    * Audio and Music Sharing: imeem, The Hype Machine, Last.fm, ccMixter

Reviews and Opinions

    * Product Reviews: epinions.com, MouthShut.com
    * Business Reviews: yelp.com
    * Community Q&A: Yahoo! Answers, WikiAnswers, Askville, Google Answers

Entertainment

    * Media & Entertainment Platforms: Cisco Eos
    * Virtual worlds: Second Life, The Sims Online, Forterra
    * Game sharing: Miniclip, Kongregate

Other

    * Information aggregators: Netvibes, Twine (website)

Check this. . 

    * Web 2.0
    * Brand infiltration
    * New media
    * User-generated content
    * Citizen media
    * Social television
    * Social media marketing
    * Social Sculpture
    * Attention Age
    * Social media optimization
    * Social media measurement
    * Social network marketing
    * Social web
    * Online research community
    * Virtual community