Talk:Social Media/Introduction

this is the basic introduction topic.

(S.A.A.RAJESWARMHURGAIYA (discuss • contribs) 12:19, 20 August 2011 (UTC))

Social media vs social networking software
I think there needs to be a clearer distinction between social media and social networking software. The description in this intro reads on the side of social networking software such as Facebook, where the emphasis is on social networking rather than media like video, photos, or news and information. In the social media I think of, the emphasis is on content. Compare the likes of Facebook with projects like Wikipedia (encyclopedia), Wikinews (news), Youtube (video), Flickr (photos). The emphasis on those is in the content, with social networking, and communications functionality thrown in to assist. The social networking and communication is secondary to the content generation. The content generation is open to anybody, and as a result, trends, culture and meaning can be observed as socially constructed. And so these projects that emphasis content generation are accurately called social media, and those projects that emphasize networking and communication are more accurately called social networking software or platforms. This book is called Social Media, and so I think it should adopt this distinction.

This distinction is not used by many people I admit, but I think we can see confusion that results from an absence of such a distinction. On the Wikipedia entry for social media, the definition is rambling and confused. It jumps across social networking and social media, unaware of a need for a clearer distinction between the two terms. In that article, the second sentence is the closest to the social media I think is important, but it is by no means perfect: "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." I would swap the sentence around to read more like: Internet-based applications that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content, building on the ideological, technological, and business foundations of Web 2.0.


 * The ideological foundations being: crowd source, folksonomies, free and freedom, resuable, remix, and in many instances, open source.
 * The technological foundations being: User centered interface, user profile and content management tools, tagging, RSS, open data
 * The business foundations being: Advertising, search, user profiling and data, trends analysis and monitoring...

Its not perfect as a definition, but I think the distinction I'm suggesting here will help manage the scope of this Wikibook, and offer readers a more useful and in-depth range of information.

leighblackall (discuss • contribs) 10:46, 28 August 2011 (UTC)