The following is directly from Wikipedia, and represents the definition for Social Media. As the definition includes numerous links to various social media tools and technology, and resources, I thought it would benefit our loyal readers to include the entire section on this site. Certainly, reviewing the basics from time to time can’t hurt, right?
Social Media – As defined on Wikipedia
Social media can take many different forms, including Internet forums, weblogs, social blogs, microblogging, wikis, podcasts, pictures, video, rating and social bookmarking. By applying a set of theories in the field of media research (social presence, media richness) and social processes (self-presentation, self-disclosure) Kaplan and Haenlein created a classification scheme for different social media types in their Business Horizons article published in 2010. According to Kaplan and Haenlein there are six different types of social media: collaborative projects, blogs and microblogs, content communities, social networking sites, virtual game worlds, and virtual communities. 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.
Communication
- Blogs: Blogger, ExpressionEngine, LiveJournal, Open Diary, TypePad, Vox, WordPress, Xanga
- Microblogging: FMyLife, Foursquare, Jaiku, Plurk, Posterous, Tumblr, Twitter, Qaiku, Yammer, Google Buzz
- Location-based social networks: Foursquare, Gowalla, Facebook places, The Hotlist
- Social networking: ASmallWorld,Cyworld, Facebook, Hi5, LinkedIn, MySpace, Orkut, Tagged, XING
- Events: Eventful, The Hotlist, Meetup.com, Upcoming
- Information Aggregators: Netvibes, Twine (website)
- Online Advocacy and Fundraising: Causes, Kickstarter
Collaboration/authority building
- Wikis: PBworks, Wetpaint, Wikia, Wikimedia
- Social bookmarking (or social tagging):[16] CiteULike, Delicious, Diigo, Google Reader, StumbleUpon, folkd
- Social news: Digg, Mixx, NowPublic, Reddit, Newsvine, MyWeboo
- Social navigation: Trapster, Waze [17]
- Content Management Systems: WordPress
- Document Managing and Editing Tools: Google Docs, Syncplicity, Docs.com, Dropbox
Multimedia
- Photography and art sharing: deviantArt, Flickr, Photobucket, Picasa, SmugMug, Zooomr, BetweenCreation
- Video sharing: sevenload, Viddler, Vimeo, YouTube, Dailymotion, Metacafe, Nico Nico Douga, Openfilm, TubeMogul
- Livecasting: Justin.tv, Livestream, OpenCU, Skype, Stickam, Ustream
- Music and audio sharing: ccMixter, Pandora Radio, Last.fm, MySpace Music, ReverbNation.com, ShareTheMusic, The Hype Machine
- Presentation sharing: scribd, SlideShare
Reviews and opinions
- Product reviews: epinions.com, MouthShut.com
- Business reviews: Customer Lobby, Yelp, Inc.
- Community Q&A: Askville, EHow, Stack Exchange, WikiAnswers, Yahoo! Answers
Entertainment
- Media and entertainment platforms: Cisco Eos
- Virtual worlds: Active Worlds, Forterra Systems, Second Life, The Sims Online
- Game sharing: Kongregate, Miniclip