Mashable - The Social Media Guide - Latest Comments in Just What is Social Media, Exactly?

Re: Just What is Social Media, Exactly?

RisingHot — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 10:09:08 -0000

very informative... i like it...

Re: Just What is Social Media, Exactly?

Pam — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 12:51:51 -0000

To me, media are simply communication channels. They have no intrinsic value in and of themselves. It's the communication that happens while using them that matters. Do oeople want to listen, participate, interact? If they don't, you're toast--regardless of the channel or how old or new it is.

Mark: You suggest that New Media started with podcasts. But in my mind it goes further back, to the 90s when the Internet became public and we saw the first Web screens, the first listservs, the first bulletin boards and dicussion groups.

Re: Just What is Social Media, Exactly?

vanogtrop — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 10:07:23 -0000

In my opinion media are carriers of information. Social media imply participation by the individual. Obviously the development of a common language helps people in any field to fruitfully discuss it's history, it's present and it's future.

For the digital domain, and more specific the online domain this common language is taking some time. A possible cause for this slow development is the fact that the field itself developes so rapidly. There is hardly time for the adoption of new terminology for most technology, since the technology itself may become obsolete. One cannot define oneself using standards of a technology one has planned to replace, seems to be the reasoning.

Not entirely correct, could be argued, given the fact that for the amount of power an engine generates we still use the term horsepower.

Re: Just What is Social Media, Exactly?

Ryan Deschamps — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 02:16:41 -0000

I've always thought of "social media" as a phrase that attempts to cover a wide range of digital "things," "spaces," etc. in a single package. "Social Media" is the package to sell the platforms to those who might want to use it.

Ultimately, a digital world at this stage requires metaphor to help us explain it. This stuff is also not a "web" in any real sense of the term, although that metaphor has stuck well enough. I've already used the word "space" and thought about "marketplace" although when you get down to it, a bunch of text on a monitor created by some electrons moving around is not really a "space" either.

In short, we are hitting into quantum territory here. The deeper we delve into the relevance of the term, the less we continue to understand it. It's not all about monetization either, since not all "media" was necessarily intended to sell ads. Harold Innis (who was very influential to McLuhan), for one, sees media simply as the mode of transfer and would include oral societies in that realm. It all depends on what you are trying to do with the world.

Re: Just What is Social Media, Exactly?

Leslie Poston — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 01:01:01 -0000

I dislike the term social media, but in the end it's only a short cut, a phrase, to make explaining something we use as a tool more standard. I explain it to each client in whatever way works best for them. :) Nice article, Mark.

Re: Just What is Social Media, Exactly?

David Hucks — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 12:46:44 -0000

At VizEdu.com we define Social Media as the â€œFusion of Technology(web2.0) and Human Behaviourâ€.

Sandeep,

I agree...

Consumer behavior (visitor behavior) will define this technology.

Re: Just What is Social Media, Exactly?

David Hucks — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 12:42:30 -0000

Social Media is now moving mainstream, we are in the procress of moving Myrtle-Beach.com into a social networking site.

Consumers are now in control and from this day forward, website users will drive messages about products, politics, local politics, et al.

It's a new age.

Re: Just What is Social Media, Exactly?

Catherine Herdlick — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 12:31:03 -0000

I can't believe this detailed an inquiry into the nature of media lacks a single reference to Marshall McLuhan, even as it purports to delve into a historic review to understand the future. The media is the message. Consider another points of entry - there are other people who are concerned with "media": artists. Just as social media ceases to be something we can "buy or sell" so things like performance art, site-specific art, and social art (!) cannot be bought or sold in the traditional ways. They're hard sells because there's not a single author for an experience. Social is beyond UGC. It's about shared experiences. And sharing requires respect and understanding.

Re: Just What is Social Media, Exactly?

Matt Dunn — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 09:28:42 -0000

really nice breakdown of the discussion, mark.

i've struggled with this very topic as i try to move my agency towards more involvement in this space. it seems to me that we struggle to define the space because it is so nebulous, so new, and we don't yet have an understanding of it. we run into this same problem when trying to determine ROI for activities we do. Jason Falls addresses this issue in a great post on his blog. we can't place a value on something that isn't necessarily measurable. we can't define something unless we fully understand it. such is the nature of a definition.

get at me with your thoughts if you like. i'm on twitter @mdd044.

Re: Just What is Social Media, Exactly?

David (Marketing Integrity) — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 09:07:18 -0000

I appreciate this discussion because I think we who are the pioneers in "Social Media", "New Media", or "Socialized Information" have a responsibility to educate the greater percentage of society who still don't know what this is or why they should participate. We feel like these new platforms and broadcast mediums have been around for a long time because we were/are early adopters, but for most people, when we use these terms (whatever we call them), most people don't know what we are talking about. Sure the masses are flocking to YouTube and Facebook, but most other platforms are very much in their infancy and not widely adopted.

The cool part is that we can and should have these discussion now so we can clarify ways to explain what this new frontier of information distribution and conversation is all about.

Re: Just What is Social Media, Exactly?

Arjo Ghosh — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 05:45:14 -0000

The term media is fine by me, why reinvent the wheel just because we can. If it isn't 'media' why do so many (including mashable) sell advertising and promote their wares against it.

The issue for me is not the semantics but whether social media is a place where commercial organisations - or anyone involved in the process of promoting something - is a place to overtly sell 'into'.

Social influences everything, but that doesn't mean that brands can access all areas. Yeah it's media, and it's helping to redefine the concept of what media actually is.

Re: Just What is Social Media, Exactly?

Clubit.tv — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 05:20:37 -0000

Thats the thing, what is this social media buzz that I keep hearing about and how do you use it? hehe, also.. what is web 2.0? Some people beg the question right?

Re: Just What is Social Media, Exactly?

Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 05:14:16 -0000

I think we definitely have it in our vocabulary to talk about content separate from the media type it's on - if you read the content ... well ... anywhere, you'll see it done quite a bit. When I tell my wife, for instance, about some conversation I had on Twitter, I don't say: "Hey babe, I just created some social media about President-Elect Obama," I instead say: "Hey babe, I was chatting with someone on Twitter about President-Elect Obama."

Not to be hyper-reactive, but to me it seems efforts to deprive words like "social media" of their meaning are esoteric and high-sounding launchpads to launch into other philosophical points (and in the end, only serve to further confuse).

Re: Just What is Social Media, Exactly?

Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 03:19:58 -0000

Right. I took a whole lot of words to basically say that.

A lot of folks are murky on the concept though (hence all the words)... in the marketing world as well as some of the new user cultures. Is Media the Message, is it Communication, is it Broadcast? That's what I hoped to clear up.

Re: Just What is Social Media, Exactly?

Infonote — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 03:00:15 -0000

In my opinion 'Media' is content. Content can be of any type audio, visual, words, drawings etc.
Tools like Twitter, Blogs and 'traditional media' are ways of transmitting the data to interested users.