Social media

The following entry is an overview of a group essay on  Social Media, Viral Marketing and Crowdsourcing.

About Social Media

by Norbert Kaareste

When trying to define what is social media, one would be greatly bedazzled as the term has gotten so wide-spread. Almost every bit of information published over the World Wide Web could be defined as social media nowadays.

But by the common understanding the term "social media" originated from the year 2004, when Chris Shipley (Co-founder and Global Research Director) coined the term on The BlogOn 2004 conference (July 22-23, 2004) where he focused on the "business of social media". "Shipley and Guidewire Group used the term "social media" in the months leading up to that event to discuss the coming together of blogging, wikis, social networks, and related technologies into a new form of participatory media." 1

So overall social media is everything that is produced/written by the consumers (of information) for the consumers. Modern web-based technologies (blog-platforms etc.) have greatly enhanced this tendency and most likely will continue to do so.

What defines today's social media

When one looks at the history that shaped today's social media, it is imminent, that ever since the beginning the common man (the consumer by the old system) is the media (http://socialmediarockstar.com/history-of-social-media). When trying to define, what is social media today, one thing is carved in stone: its a medium that is produced by peers for peers.

The second great factor shaping the social media is the internet. While it could be possible to implement social media peculiarities on the old medium (eg. magazines) (http://springwise.com/media_publishing/24hourmag/), it is imminent that without the internet the social media wouldn't exist, as the neccessity to share and publish rapidly and easily is only available through internet.

There are some other terms that have help to generate the idea behind social media:

Web 2.0

One of the most important factors influencing social media from its start are the principles that form web 2.0.

To better comprehend the term, it is important to see its origins. While there are many opinions about what is web 2.0, experts have agreed that web 1.0 was the readable web (Cormode & Krishnamurthy 2008) and 2.0 is the writeable web (O´Reilly Media 2005). Readable web in this context means that all of the content in the internet was one-way communicated: author published his or hers work on the internet and the readers could only consume. Web 2.0 brought the ability to alter that content, either by republishing it interactively (sharing), giving instant feedback to the author and/or making the author’s role universal – everybody is a content consumer and provider today.

User-generated content

A study conducted by eMarketer in early 2009 found that the number of Internet users who consume user generated content and who create it will shoot up significantly in the next four years:

   * By 2013, nearly 155 million US Internet users will consume some type of content created by users, up almost 34% from 2008
   * The number of content creators will grow to 114.5 million by 2013, an almost 39% increase from 2008
   * By 2013, 51.8% of all US Internet users will be content creators, up from 42.8% in 2008

http://www.toprankblog.com/2009/10/user-generated-content/

User generated content can and should be seen as the backbone of social media, as stated before the peer to peer system supplementing the social media solely depends on user generated content.

Virtual community

The words "virtual community" and "online community" have been bandied about, hyped and interpreted in many ways. According to Boetcher et al "Online or virtual community is the gathering of people, in an online "space" where they come, communicate, connect, and get to know each other better over time." http://www.fullcirc.com/community/communitywhatwhy.htm

The reasons why people go through the effort to gather into communities comes from five factors (Boetcher et al):

    * To socialize
    * To work together (business)
    * To work together (community - geographic)
    * To work together (issues)
    * To have topical conversations

Examples of social media

One of the most comprehensive classification of social media comes from CNET blog WebWare. WebWare generates every year a top 100 of web applications that feature web 2.0 principles. In the year 2009, the classification used by WebWare (being also a good classification of social media types) were:

Music & Video

This category of social media could also be described as the entertainment section, as music and video publishing and sharing on the internet is an evolution from traditional media to new media (from radio, TV to internet).

Browsers & Extensions

Although technical in its standard values, today a web browser could be seen as paper (or print-machinery) is to journalism. Interesting example of a browser and social media crossover is the web browser [Flock], that defines itself as a social web browser.

Commerce

Commerce as a type of social media has also developed a long way, with sites like Craigslist and Woot! being the most famous example. Craigslist started almost fifteen years ago as a one-man project and today it is one of the top 10 most visited websites in USA.

Communications

This segment mainly offers instant messaging platforms but nevertheless the developments in communication sector will greatly affect the social media sphere, as the Google Wave (new understanding of e-mailing) is thought to be the ultimate predecessor to today's social media (http://www.ignitesocialmedia.com/mid-year-2009-predictions-social-media-facebook-kills-twitter-google-wave-launches/).

Storage

Although simplistic in their way of working, file-sharing sites like Skydrive or Dropbox are also benefiting to the widespread of information, examples being in the case of Skydrive massive user-generated file-collections of information on a certain subject.

Location Based Services

Location Based Services have developed greatly over the last few years and it is wise to believe that the highpoint of LBS is soon to be arrived, as almost every person in the world has a mobile and of these persons the share of those that own a smart-phone, is rising (http://www.mobile-weblog.com/50226711/smartphones_rising.php). LBS is more or less an extension of the media (social media) to a persons location, thus ultimately breaking the last physical barriers that have tormented media from the start (there has not been any services offered that are based on the clients location (more detailed than ~county level).

Productivity

Websites focusing on productivity (like Google Docs, Zoho) have long benefited to the growth of social media. One of the most common collaboration methods today are among others the joint editing of documents over Google Docs or services alike.

Search & Reference

This segment is a type of social media, that is truly innovative, as the times before social media a person, who had the ability to recommend something (journalist, editor etc.), was in a power stance. Today, using common sites like Answers.com anybody can recommend and reference on any subject to persons who are willing to listen. Another interesting site Scour.com defines itself a a social search engine, offering its users the ability to co-search and comment the results for others.

Social Networking & Publishing

Last but not least - the social networks (Facebook, Myspace) have long been the most outstanding examples of social media boom. Facebook, with its more than 350 million users worldwide is definitely a good example of a new media environment.

Alternative classifications

    * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media#Examples
    * http://microgeist.com/2009/04/the-10-types-of-social-media-sites-you-need-to-be-on-and-why/
    * http://kevinmcintosh.com/uncategorized/different-types-of-social-media
    * http://www.hotelmarketingstrategies.com/six-basic-types-of-social-media-and-which-is-best-for-you/
    * http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/080408-070000

Future of the scene

One of the most universal predictions to social media development is that its users / producers will be more universal by their profile. As today there are multitude of sites, that offer social media functions, the membership of those sites is dependant on pre-registration. Imagine what would happen to the userbase, if suddenly anybody with a OpenID, or Google ID or etc. could login and start using the service. The growth of usage wouldn't be tremendeos but it would still be significant. http://blogs.forrester.com/groundswell/2008/03/the-future-of-s.html

Another big change waiting the social media sphere is the "un-walling" of social media platforms. Today, if you post your valuable input to a number of sites that you are a member of, there is a multitude of steps to be taken by a friend of yours to "consume" that content (register a profile, add you as a friend, browse your profile). It is believed that eventually there can be only one system for social media (most commonly is Google Wave named) that offers the platform for easy consumption by any person interested (and accepted by the producer). http://www.wired.com/dualperspectives/article/news/2009/06/dp_social_media_ars

A more technical overview of possible ways the future might (or will) shape social media is given Mike Laurie http://mashable.com/2009/06/01/social-media-future-tech/, who sees the social media develop in ways, that could today be seen as too "futuristic" (RFID monitorin of your life-style, face-recognition software etc.).

About web 3.0 and social media

As stated before the social media (what it is and how we use it) was and is greatly defined by web 2.0 principles. Therefore it should be taken under consideration, what affects would web 3.0 (or some other abstract development of the current web) have on the social media sphere.

One could say that the main factors constituting the web 3.0 in the coming years are semantics, AI and mobility (http://computer.howstuffworks.com/web-302.htm). Web browsers (or PCs themselves, or technological mobile accessories) will turn out to be more and more the browsers who offer assistant-like work outcomes for users to consume. This will be done by using elaborate schemes of semantics and also some degree of AI by the “automated browser”. Also it is clear, that information (content) will forsake all kinds of limits to its spread, meaning that it will be accessible from any type of machine or from any place on earth. (http://norcatimke.blogspot.com/2009/10/what-will-constitute-web-30.html)

In conclusion

It is understood that social media can encompass a multitude of technologies available today on the internet. However the core subject of social media is and will be sharing. And sharing by peers to peers. This type of sharing doesn't have no limits, as today spheres like communication (blogs, social networks), collaboration (wikis, social bookmarking), multimedia (photo, video sharing), reviewing (product reviews, community Q&A), entertainment itself (virtual worlds) and other are defining social media.

But it will definitely not stop here, as there are tendencies that will reshape again our experience with social media. Of these tendencies the important ones to point out are universal accounts (http://www.slideshare.net/charleneli/the-future-of-social-networks?src=embed) - meaning that our profile on the internet will ultimately be singular - with bits of it publicesed to different social mediums. Another important notion is the shift of audience. As in the old days there were the audience and the stage (http://www.slideshare.net/irata/the-future-of-social-media-presentation-772765), now the audience has turned there eyes on each other, and the group sizes are decreasing. But this turns the audience instead of the stage to the mass medium. Time magazine understood it in 2006, when it chose YOU to be the next big thing (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1569514,00.html).

References

    * http://www.wired.com/dualperspectives/article/news/2009/06/dp_social_media_ars
    * http://www.ignitesocialmedia.com/future-social-media/
    * http://www.ignitesocialmedia.com/5-trends-where-social-media-marketing-is-heading-in-2009-and-beyond/
    * http://www.socialmediatoday.com/SMC/65077
    * http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/law_librarian_blog/2009/10/where-do-you-think-social-media-is-heading.html

Free versus Open Source: any difference?

As I understood, free software means, that you'll get the package with no cost (Apple OS) but the only thing "free" about it is that you don't have to pay no entrance fee.

Open Source on the other hand means, that the source code is free for everybody to edit and view, which basically implements that the software itself is free also as nobody would pay for something that they can copy and develop themselves for free.

In a hacker way of thinking - of course Open Source software is a better option,  as the idea goes further in terms of fighting IP.

I myself would agree with open source method also, as its final in its paradigm (free software). Also as I've used GPL licensed software (FileZilla) and other free (Mozilla), it seems that the business model (or development) model is more persistent to expand (and continue) than the simple free-software model.