Talk:Social media

Social media is a buzz but also a change in media

As i look at it after studying it for almost half a year, i think it isn't about the definition but about what has changed since traditional and new media. I think that social media should refer to all media (most likely on the internet) that facilitates social behavior like sharing, debating, recommending, playing games and so on. So in terms of definitions i would prefer - also for future and earlier forms of this kind of media - to define it by the sum of channels that facilitates social behavior. Social behavior will only occur when 2 or more people communicate with each other. This doesn't have to mean they have to speak to each other as a form of communication but also can be other forms of communication like smiling et cetera.

If we would define it like this a phone call or text message could be defined within social media. I don't think a phone call or text message shapes a new term but together with all other technologies - which we can communicate with each other today - do.

SJ v Eijk

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.147.221.156 (talk) 00:41, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

--69.126.178.19 (talk) 03:01, 6 March 2009 (UTC) I agree with most of the above, but have suggested some modifications to the core definition. I wrote a book on social media entitled "Content Nation," in which I define social media in terms of highly scalable publishing technologies that enable people to influence others. I've refined that definition here to focus on the fact that social media is, first and foremost, content, not technology. Please reference the Wikipedia definition of [Content_(media_and_publishing)|content], which I defined four years ago and contributed to its development here on Wikipedia. If content is both information and experiences, then this aligns with your concept of communications such as phone conversations being social media.

The other factor that I think distinguishes social media in today's sense is the availability of readily accessible and highly scalable publishing technologies. Personal phone calls don't scale up easily into global audiences. Social media is significant in that a very personal set of communications can be shared rapidly with a global audience through the highly scalable communications of the Internet and mobile communications networks. The technologies that make this possible are highly accessible, many of them available for free or for minimal expenditures. This makes them more readily used as a direct extension of human communications abilities: you don't have to be an "elite" person to access them or to control them.

In general I think that the article is quite good, I think that only the base definition needed some tweaking. --69.126.178.19 (talk) 03:01, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Social media

Hello all, here is one for discussion. We have coined an abbreviation for Social Media, useful for hash tags #SoMe http://socialmediamafia.com/2008/07/socmed/ the play on words of course is highly amusing. Chrishambly (talk) 22:12, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

The term "social media" will only be hijacked by the marketers if sources like Wikipedia allow them to. Social media is a valid term to encompass the phenomenon of social constructs that arise out of user-generated content. This is perhaps the most significant phenomenon to occur to media since the rise of mass media. If someone has a more appropriate name for this phenomenon, let's hear it. But don't delete this entry. (I also don't understand why some of the background around its origins has been edited out.) J.D._Lasica 22:07, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I think it's completely inappropriate to take down the campaigns section of this post. First of all, those campaigns UTILIZED social media to make a difference, how is that not related to social media? Social Media is certainly not a stagnant topic, it changes everyday. This is not an entry for something like "Charles Darwin" where the information is finite and irrefutable. As social media changes, and part of those changes involve campaigns, there should a. be a history of these changes and fluctuations in the entry, and b. be left up as a forum for discussion. People editing these pages on Wikipedia, are obviously maintaining some personal definition of what social media is. Wikipedia is not a place to promote your own agenda. You can not just unwittingly take things down because you do not fully understand the topic and are not open to changes within the field. Do a little research, Social Media is no longer Myspace.(Saramcgo 16:12, 22 January 2007 (UTC)).

Please go easy on this article... it's definitely a worthy topic for wikipedia.. but it's just getting going. I don't get the whole business section at all and maybe it shouldn't even be here... but I'm leaving it in in the hopes that someone will revise it and work it out. The only thing I removed was this http://affirmativesolutions.com/ from the examples of social media services... because it's a blog... for a company or something... maybe it should be under the businesses section.. but wikipedia is not a directory... so I'd advise against any such links altogether. Nothing personal aggainst affirmativesolutions.--mmeiser 21:02, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

What's the deal with the whole "campaigns" section? What do charity campaigns have to do with social media? I think that section should be removed. (thinking it over...) So I did. nep 19:23, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

'Social Media': A marketing buzzword and a neologism (WP:NEO)

'Social Media' appears to be a marketing buzzword of limited currency. WP:NEO provides:

To support the use of (or an article about) a particular term we must cite reliable secondary sources such as books and papers about the term — not books and papers that use the term.

The current references of this article contain nothing that qualifies as a reliable source (WP:RS), and in fact they all appear to be marketing fluff. Does anyone else agree that this article should be nominated for deletion? EdJohnston 21:57, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

The term seems to be getting widespread outside of marketing and investor types, and is not much different than "Web 2.0" and other similar fuzzy terms. The danger is that it's defined so broadly that it can cover just about anything on the web. I'm not attached to the article in its current state, and would be happy to see a more critical discussion — in the meantime, I've added a link to Robert Scoble's discussion of the term. David 23:47, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

User:Dpm64's improvement, and this article's adventures in the blogs

This article is better after user:Dpm64's revision, which cut it down substantially. Even after the revision, I note that there is still no citation for the first use of 'social media'. We should be sensitive to the issues of WP:NEO, and to the fact that people will cite Wikipedia for this as though it were a well-defined term. The article still does not appear to meet this WP policy criterion (mentioned above):

To support the use of (or an article about) a particular term we must cite reliable secondary sources such as books and papers about the term — not books and papers that use the term.

Dpm64, I followed the new link to Robert Scoble's blog that you just added to the article. It does lead to some complaints about our Wikipedia article (probably the one before your improvement). Here is one of the complaints, by Dare Obasanjo:

I tried reading the wikipedia entry for social media but ended up more confused than ever. The first paragraph seems OK and it reads

Social media describes the online tools, platforms and practices that people use to share opinions, insights, experiences, and perspectives with each other. Social media can take many different forms, including text, images, audio, and video. Popular social mediums include blogs, message boards, podcasts, wikis, and vlogs.

This seems like an explanatory definition until you consider that this pretty much describes the majority of the Web today...

Here's my own final comment. I found the addition of the link to Robert Scoble's blog interesting, but I wonder if it's against our current guidelines against linking to blogs. There may be some fluffy topics (like this one) where blogs have the best copy, but it's not clear that we will do a good job trying to cover such topics. EdJohnston 01:08, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Apologies, I wasn't aware of the blog policy. Personally, I'd prefer to evaluate blogs on the same criteria as any other source — most are rubbish, some are useful, and a few are authoritative — but I'll defer to any standard Wikipedia policies. I repeat that I think that the term social media is widely-enough used (i.e. not just one small group promoting it) that it justifies a short article, just as equally fuzzy Web 2.0 does. Perhaps the article needs to include more critical commentary on the term itself as a term. David 11:17, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Under 'Links normally to be avoided', WP:EL has:

Links to blogs and personal webpages, except those written by a recognized authority.

I imagine that a link to Scoble might be used to liven up a discussion, but I'm not sure we could use such a link as a reference for anything factual, under WP:RS. I assume that John Baez's blog could be cited in a physics article, since he's a recognized expert in mathematical physics, but the blogs that have something to say about Social Media are presumably just offering opinions or editorial comment. EdJohnston 20:21, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Miniclip citations

Citations showing first large scale distribution of widgets to the masses on the Internet. Miniclip's Dancing Bush game was freely syndicated to all websites via a portable chunk of code (widget):

- Wall St. Journal, Jan., 2002 article referring to 2001 Dancing Bush sensation: http://www.domainmart.com/news/WSJ_ecommerce-marketing2.htm

- Library of Cogress, archive, Oct, 23, 2001 : http://wasearch.loc.gov/sep11/2001*sa_/dancingbush.com/ clearly shows Dancing Bush freely syndicated via the widget code: "Put on your site for free" widget code link under Dancing Bush game. This is the earliest archived example of a large website freely offering widgets.

- Google: Go to google and type in "dancing bush" to see the thousands of websites that Dancing Bush was syndicated to via the widget code.

- Comscore Media Metrix Industry reports: http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?id=254 showing Miniclip as a top newcomer to the Internet (a major website) in 2001 with over 1 million users.

- Dancing Bush game with 2001 copyright notice and syndication widget code link under the "more" button: "Put this on your website for free" http://www.miniclip.com/games/dancing-bush/en/ —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 222.155.173.208 (talk) 01:30, 25 February 2007 (UTC).

- Miniclip sharing precedes all the sites mentioned here cited by Alexa.com: see charts: http://www.alexaholic.com/Miniclip.com+wikipedia.com+myspace.com+youtube.com+secondlife.com http://www.alexaholic.com/miniclip.com+digg.com+flickr.com

'Buzz word' Consideration

I've seen this term and couldn't make much sense of it - this is quite likely because it seems to be a type of 'buzz' word, anyway, definition problems/confusion may come out of the fact that all media has a social nature (media is a form of communication, communication is social). Maybe this term came about because these types of websites seemed more social-oriented. I assume the term refers to something like '[fast] public viewable, mass public affected/altered/contributed communication' or '[unprofessional] mass public media' or 'socially acting media' or something (pardon the lack of decisiveness today). Spur 07:36, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

A weak article that lacks reliable sources

See my comment above at #'Social Media': A marketing buzzword and a neologism (WP:NEO). Social media seems to be a term used by marketers to promote certain kinds of advertising. It is not clear it has any neutral descriptive meaning for which there is general agreement. After all the time that has passed, this article still has no reliable sources. A line from Scoble and a web site created by Dion Hinchcliffe that claims the name 'Social Computing Magazine' is not enough to go on. Note this quote from policy:

To support the use of (or an article about) a particular term we must cite reliable secondary sources such as books and papers about the term — not books and papers that use the term.

Can anyone explain why we should retain this article and allow new non-referenced material to be added to it? Isn't deletion a logical option? EdJohnston 01:27, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

OneWorldTV

I think OneWorldTV is a prime example of Social media, an open documentary platform that caters for people with both slow and fast connections. Why cant this be added as an example of this topic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wakeyjamie (talk • contribs) 24 August, 2007

You are requesting that OneWorldTV should be added to a section that features 'prominent examples' of social media. There is not much evidence that this is a prominent web site. OneWorldTV gets 53,000 Google hits, while YouTube gets 317,000,000 hits, i.e. YouTube is better known by a factor of 6,000.

Far from being universally known, OneWorldTV suffers from a lack of third-party sources to show its current importance (the references date from 2002). The article on OneWorldTV has been tagged for notability. Please improve it if you have information available. EdJohnston 15:46, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

External links

Including external links might help frame the topic and show evidence that 'social media' is a well defined concept. I had added a link to the the International Conference on Weblogs and Social Media. The entry page focused on the 2008 conference, but links to the pages for the 2007 conference and earlier symposium. The 2007 pages have links to tutorials and papers. AFAIK, ICWSM is the only conference that covers all aspects of social media including perspectives from mathematics, computer science, sociology, anthropology, business applications, computational linguistics, etc. Full disclosure: I'm involved in helping to organize ICWSM 2008. Tim Finin 14:49, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for clarifying your connection to the conference. Inclusion of this link would be more plausible if there were third-party reference attesting to the notability of this conference. 'Social media' is now a popular term among marketers. The Social media article is destined to become a spam target unless there is a conscious effort to keep the content simple and well-sourced, and avoid using it as a vehicle for advertising or promotion. Unfortunately, mention of upcoming conferences might be thought to fall in the promotional area. EdJohnston 15:12, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Would pointing to the past 2007 conference (ICWSM 2007) be less so? It does have links to papers, tutorials and other material from the conference that would be valuable for someone interested in getting a deeper understanding of the issues. Tim Finin 19:35, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

The most valuable change would be the addition of actual content to the article, rather than a link, from a paper whose importance can be shown via third-party commentary. If such content were added then including a reference to the original paper in the reference list would be appropriate. To get you started, note that the main paragraph of the article has no references at all for any of the information there (except for one single link to scobleizer.com). Getting references for the claims made in the article would be a big benefit. EdJohnston 19:44, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Comment by User:Dpeck0404

While I think it is warranted to be critical of advertisers and their desire to hijack the term social media, I think that we also have an opportunity to define social media. I suggest that social media serves as an umbrella, defining all of the activities that come together in a medium that uses one or more senses of sight, sound, and or motion to create visual displays, picture-sharing opportunities, connection points, as well as the opportunity to create, post, and react to pictures, text and videos.

Social media uses the “wisdom of crowds” to create information in a collaborative manner. Social media can take many different forms, including text, images, audio, and video. Technologies such as blogs, picture-sharing, vlogs, wall-postings, email, chat, music-sharing, group creation, and voice over IP, to name a few. Examples of social media applications are Google (reference, social networking), Wikipedia (reference), MySpace (social networking), Facebook (social networking), iTunes (personal music), YouTube (social networking and video sharing), Second Life (virtual reality), and Flickr (photo sharing). --Dpeck0404 21:40, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

I suggest that your recent addition to the article adds nothing to what is already stated in the section lower down. Unfortunately your explanation above makes no sense to me: a combination of social constructs presented in a manner that utilizes a technology utility so as to create collaboration through the integration of words and pictures. The language is extremely vague, and why would people come to an encyclopedia to read such a diffuse definition? Please clarify, or simplify, your addition, and please provide reliable sources for the claims you are adding to the article. EdJohnston 22:17, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

I have made some changes with my recent additions. Forgive me for potentially using the wrong language or focus, as I am new to Wikipedia. I hope the changes add clarity. Social media should be self-descriptive of what it is, a tool or utility that allows for the collaboration of the masses to provide customized information that furthers community development through the posting and sharing of pictures, and words. Let me know what you been by citing or adding reliable sources. Thanks. --Dpeck0404 01:49, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

You need sources to justify the claims you are making. Wikipedia is not a place for people to write their own editorial commentary on technology trends. If reliable sources have defined what social media are, then let's hear what they have said. See WP:RS. Your personal opinion is not sufficient. When you write, Social media should be self-descriptive of what it is, that sounds like your own value judgment. EdJohnston 02:44, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Robert Scoble, co-author of the book, Naked Conversations, summarizes his qualifications and bullet point definition of social media with the nine points listed below (Scoble, Israel, 2006):

1. Can be changed (updated) in real time.

2. Allows audience interaction.

3. Popularity is transparent.

4. Permanently available archives.

5. Can be a mix of media.

6. Author = Publisher.

7. No limits on the quantity of content.

8. Freely Syndicated.

9. Can be mashed up.

This mish-mash presentation of items appropriately gives context to not just a specific venue or medium, but rather a greater perspective of an ever-changing field integrating social behavior, technology, and media.

Mark Zuckerberg was recently quoted in Newsweek by Steven Levy's in an article called Facebook Grows Up stating, "Facebook is not a social networking site but a "utility," a tool to facilitate the information flow between users and their compatriots, family members and professional connections" (Levy,Aug. 27, 2007, p. 42).

Media, technology and culture are critical components linked together in the creation of community. According to David Giles in his text Media Psychology, “the intersection of mass communication, culture, and technology” are key drivers of change" (Giles,2003, p.7). These drivers of change provide the mechanism or mediums needed to create shared meaning. Marshall McLuhan believed that each new medium shaped society, and that the media was simply an “extension of ourselves” (McLuhan, 1964, p.11).--Dpeck0404 04:52, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment. These quotes are interesting, and if possible, can you obtain the complete references? Including the Steven Levy article in Newsweek. If you can find a URL we can put in the reference it would be even better, though the author, date and title are otherwise sufficient. EdJohnston 19:32, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Is one link from Robert Scoble really the best outside link we could find? One could argue that Robert is not a leader or expert in that field, and many other much more detailed, authoritative, and expert references exist. MichaelGray 02:41, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

If you have more authoritative sources handy, please suggest them here. This article could certainly use some reliable sources. As suggested above by Dpeck0404, it seems possible that Scoble's book Naked Conversations could be used. Since it's a book, it can be considered a reliable source (which blogs normally are not). EdJohnston 03:51, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Buzz

Buzz seems to be more of a term that demonstrates the manner in which information travels through networks in social media. It also comes from marketing as a demonstration of a pull message (passed along through networks of people) that creates buzz or interest, as compared to a push message that is advertising driven and not audience selected. More appropriate terminology may include "social graph," as cited by Facebook's Zuckerberg. He states, "A social graph links us all. People communicate through those connections" (Levy, Aug. 27, 2007, p.43).--Dpeck0404 14:39, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

It's not that hard to define this term

It looks like people are getting caught up in either self-promotion or anti-self-promotion in the discussion of this page. Given how many people want to know what it means and the fact that Wikipedia is itself social media, the idea of deleting the entry is ludicrous.

The single defining characteristic of social media is simply that the users are providing the content as opposed to one "godlike" hand the way we see in traditional media. Timeliness, tools and platforms, the fact that it is often multimedia, are all red herrings. Social media doesn't even have to be online to be social media. The op-ed page of the New York Times is social media. New Moon magazine for girls (https://www.newmoon.org/) is social media. It just means it's created by society and not "the man".

I started one of the first social media websites in 1996 - SmartGirl Internette Inc. (now in a slightly altered form at http://www.smartgirl.org) and under new management since 2001. All the content was written by the audience, not by our website staff. I now work as a social media consultant, so I'm one of the "experts" this article is seeking. I'm not trying to self-promote, just explain to the many people out there who are seeing this term and wanting to know what it means. You can find my brief definition "Any communications format where the users publish the content" on my blog here: http://blog.isabelhilborn.com/2007/10/a-simple-defini.html 71.232.227.153Isabel Walcott Hilborn 10/23/2007 —Preceding comment was added at 20:05, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

"It looks like people are getting caught up in either self-promotion or anti-self-promotion [...]"

Full Ack - Armin B. Wagner (talk) 16:29, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Defining Social Media

I'd like to submit a definition, and suggest some sources for verifying "social media" as a both a discipline and an emerging personal norm. Like Isabel and others here, I work in the industry *and* (as an end user) see the potential of "social media" as siginificant cultural happening.

The definition: Social media: "A form of communication where the users publish the content with the specific intention of sharing it with others. Social Media is often associated with marketing, advertising, or persuassive communication, though this is in actuality a special case of its application."

Rationale: I think the business and personal aspects of social media are tighly linked because of the motives in our use of any form of media--specifically our deep-seated desires to communicate, influence, persuade, help--as we seek to build and improve ourselves and our communities (including for selfish reasons). Our media is part of who we are--something that extends across a range of activities.

Traditional media makes a reasonable general comparison because most people understand what it is, and, it exemplifies the differences between centrally controlled and produced content as compared with user generated content in a culturally significant way (see J.D._Lasica above) It also exemplifies the difference between communication with a for-pay motivation (essentially, all traditional media with the possible exception of the editorial page in the newspaper) and communication for the simple purpose of sharing an experience. Either way, the objective is still influence or persuasion: "Look at this cool campground I found" (so...you should check it out sometime) and ... "Look at this great watch" (so...you should buy one) are very much the same thing in this sense.

We can point to credibility sources. Here are a few: 1) the documented trends in the blogging and UGC participation; 2) the fact that (from the Center for Media Research and PEW, among others) that the number of content producers will soon roughly equal the number of content consumers; 3) the documented (Forester, others) perception among consumers of referrals and personal word-of-mouth as a highly credible source of information (47% of consumers say it's most important); 4) the use of leading social networking sites (e.g., there are more people using LinkedIn than live in Sweden); 5) the fact that men check an avergae of 4.7 websites when making a purchase; women check 4.0. If the manufacturer or retailer was the "definitive" source, those numbers would both be closer to 1.0. They aren't--people are looking around and using social media to verify marketing claims.

In summary, we should have no problem at all 1) defining social media; 2) pointing to verifiable sources that attest to its use and the trends in its use, in both personal and business applications; 3) separating "social media" as a personal channel from social media as a business channel (both are important culturally; 4) creating a robust Wikipedia entry as a result.

dave evans 04:21, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Redefining Social Media

Dave, While I appreciate your definition and defense, I think it is too narrowly defined to aptly serve as a broad-based definition for social media.

While I appreciate that you come from an industry perspective (work in the industry), I would purport that it's wider than an industry, and that an amendment to a previous definition may serve as a stronger expanded definition.

Before moving to the definition, I suggest that we allow for the inclusion and contributions of all involved, both experts and not. Many times, a non-expert can provide better clarity on a definition or set of terms than those who are in the middle of it. In education, I am always amazed at how quickly we begin to use "edu-speak" and begin talking in terms that only those involved in the discourse of higher education utilize. As such, I might suggest that we review a text from James Surowiecki, called the Wisdom of Crowds (2005). In this text, Surowiecki talks about the benefits of technology and the ability to create shared learning and outcomes today that are better, and have stronger levels of expertise because of the ability to include diverse groups of people and expertise. The end result of Surowiecki's book focuses on the collaborative nature of social media, and the benefits provided through this new conduit.

In your presentation you talk about different forms of media (pay vs. not for pay, etc.) and such I would move toward a more common ground of calling or labeling the medium of communication simply media, falling back to Marshall McLuhan's quote and discovery as he investigated patterns of information, and began to identify that social aspects of media would create inherent definitions. His famous line, "the message is the medium (or media)," provided for us an aspect of how the media and message are interconnected, and cannot be separated.

Said differently, David Giles in his book, Media Psychology quotes McLuhan and his book, Understanding Media. According to Giles, McLuhan states, “each new medium shapes society by its own terms (Giles, 2003, p. 6).” And thus, according to McLuhan the media will always be defined as an “extension of ourselves (McLuhan, Gordon, 1994, p. 19).

Moving to this level, social media becomes a much broader definition and discussion. It is broader than the discussion of content producers and content users, broader than word-of-mouth, persuasion, and utilities such as LinkedIn, and terms such as social networking and social networks.

So, I might suggest that we consider the shortened original definition, listed below as an opportunity to serve both those in the industry and those who are not, those who are users, and those who are producers, and maybe allow for a constructivist viewpoint so as to capture everyone's thoughts and expertise in the definition:

Social media is an umbrella term, defining the activities that come together in a medium using more than one sense of sight, sound, or motion to create displays, picture-sharing opportunities, and connection points through content. A collaborative opportunity to create, post, and react to pictures, or videos is critical to social media.

Additional thoughts on SISOMO can be sourced from Kevin Roberts, CEO of Saatchi and Saatchi at http://www.sisomo.com/sisomo/article/sisomo_media/.

--Dpeck0404 06:49, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Redefining Social Media - Building Consensus

Kevin-

I agree with you, for exactly the points you make. There are really two (or more) separate but related concepts being presented here. One is social media itself, the other--and subordinate to social media--is the application of social constructs in marketing and advertising. Given that the entire topic is still in a very early stage I'm OK with keeping the two within a single Wiki page. Splitting them out now--creating pages for social media, social media marketing, social media optimization...etc-- weakens (I think) the impact that this group can have on putting some good knowledge out there for people interested in learning about social media. That is, afterall, one of the prime uses of Wikipedia.

Your proposed definition highlights the key aspects of social media in any form: collaboration, community, multiple forms of media. I like it.

If we build off of that we can use the associated Wiki article to show how social media marketing and other applications of social media come about. This would seem to serve well visitors seeking informaiton about social media, as it would establish the umbrella context and then provide specifics as to its implementation for a range of purposes. As the discipline becomes more establshed, the specific examples can be broken out onto specific pages when/if warranted.

dave evans (talk) 16:05, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Proposal for Definition/new first paragraph for Social Media

"Umbrella Term" is not a descriptive term that helps us narrow down and define this important but vague term in social media.

I want to propose the first two sentences be replace with the following:

Social Media is the use of electronic and Internet tools for the purpose of sharing and discussing information and experiences with other human beings.

Here is the logic behind this definition proposal:

• http://friendfeed.com/e/a17f269c-2e0f-bb6d-9fa6-f406f265571a
• http://www.benparr.com/2008/08/its-time-we-defined-social-media-no-more-arguing-heres-the-definition/

Summarized: If you break down the term, you have social and you have media. Social is about human interaction, media refers to the tools used to transmit data and information. Together, you are talking about the transfer of information between humans. But social media is primarily electronic (Internet, phones, and computers) and the difference between it and traditional media is that the information is shared and discussed rather than presented.

I want to use this definition as a starting point of a debate to make an encompassing definition of social media. Yes, this definition is a bit wide ranging and can construe things like email, but that's fine - email is a form of social media, just not a very effective one (only two-way and private) and not one you'd present as a modern example.

Thoughts?

Mystalic (talk) 21:11, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

[Thanks for bringing this issue up, sorry in adv for the terse language.] My first issue is that the grammar is awkward; "social media" is made to feel like a verb ("...is the use of"). Second, is "social media" really only about the transfer of information between humans? Every time we enter a tag into delicious, we're simultaneously keeping ourselves organized, using simple machine language to talk to a database, AND assigning a description to an object that will help others find it in the future; this definition oversimplifies processes such as this to such a degree that substantial meaning is lost. All that said, the main issue that I have with this definition (and it is shared by many definitions being discussed here) is that it attempts to define "social media" in relief to "traditional media". "Social" is a qualitative judgement while "traditional" feels more like a temporal judgement; we're already comparing apples and bananas. As inadequate as it was, I feel that the previous definition, by being more general, is a little more accurate than the current version. Not sure what action to take at the moment, I haven't really been involved in a Talk page before. Sorry I can't offer my own take on this for now ;-) Thanks! Spimeco (talk) 07:37, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Good points. Let me answer.

• Perhaps on the verbage problem. Social media is a noun, after all. Social media are the tools used to transfer information possibly? the definition of media states that it is tools.
• Social media is meant to be about people. The computer and the database are only the tools we use to send that information out ot others.
• Traditional media, as in the citations, is one-way, a presentation of information, while social media is two-way, a conversation around a piece of information. A tag is shared and other tag it, then talk about it on Twitter, Digg, and FriendFeed.

So if I were to do another rewrite, I would use "Social media refers to the electronic and Internet tools used in sharing and discussing information and experiences with other human beings." Then add "Unlike traditional media, which generally presents information from the source to the reader, social media is meant to engage both the information presenter and the reader in a conversation centered around the information."

Or something like that. --Mystalic (talk) 21:09, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm almost doubtful that we can define something that is still drastically evolving, but it's definitely worth a shot. I'll throw in a couple thoughts:

• Should social media be defined by opposite to traditional media? Isn't that a limited way of looking at it?
• Should it be defined by specific infrastructure, tool, platform or transmission medium?
• Should we restrict the thought to human beings? What is the line between a corporation and a human being? What about a bot?
• Let's think about some of the key traits of all media: creation, distribution, cost, scale and time (I'm sure there are more...)

With those thoughts, and in the effort to frame the thought around a more generic way to look at it, I'll throw out a different direction.

Social media: many-way communication that can originate from anybody, delivered to many, simultaneously at zero marginal cost.

I'm sure the phrasing is off, but wanted to get thoughts around that frame.

--Unstructured (talk) 03:38, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

We need to give it a definition, even if it must change from time to time. So my points.

• I didn't define it by traditional media, I used it as a starting point. It is a form of media, so I defined it against the definition of media and how that's used in society currently. From the starting point, we can come to whatever conclusion fits best
• If you read the mission statements of most social networking and social media services, it talks about people. Here is a very good list of definitions for tech websites. Look at Digg's statement - "It is a place for people to discover...
• And then look at Facebook: "...is a social utility that helps people communicate. Twitter, StumbleUpon, and delicious all mention either you as a person or people in general. That's where I get people.
• Should it be defined by the tool or platform? Unfortuately, yes, because media, just media, is about the tool or platform. Social media, you must not forget, is a FORM of media, and if you read the definition of media on wikipedia, you'll see why I chose to define it based on the tools.
• As to your definition, it brings good points, but my critiques are as follows: "many-way communication" is awkward, though it is true. I don't think it covers enough about how the transmission is done - by your definition, a loudspeaker is social media, though we don't think of a loudspeaker as such. And at zero marginal cost - you're forgetting the cost of the phones for twittering, the electricity to run them, and the cost of building the computers to transmit the information. But most of all it doesn't define it in terms of media and in terms of social, which is important in my view for this definition. (sorry, that was a long criticism)
• But I think your definition does hit on some key points and we need to dissect this argument further and with more people. Mystalic (talk) 13:48, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

--Dpeck0404 (talk) 21:38, 6 September 2008 (UTC) I think that we are moving in the right direction, but feel that we are limiting our definition by using terms like technology, electronic, and internet. At some point, a stapler was/and or is a piece of technology, a telephone is electronic, and the internet was accessible via the computer. Today, a stapler is not technology, a telephone is not tied to being electronic, and I can access the internet via many different connection points. I think that social media focuses on the engagement of technology and people, over a medium that today is based on the internet, but tomorrow may not be.

I think this is a problematic definition to be honest. Any definition of social media has to, I think, be understood in relation to other things that are out there, including the earlier social software. There's another equally bizarre and clumsy definition over in that article, which has gone through a similarly tortuous and special interested path. The definition that I work from in that circumstances is that social software is about structured software-based mediation between people that helps them communicate and collaborate more effectively. That seems to be almost identical to the proposal you give here for social media. I think when we talk about social media, we have to be talking at least in part about media being used communicatively, or the massive democratization of media. To be honest though, the problem here is that the term is and never has been particularly well defined. Much like Web 2.0, it was a label created to mobilise or bring together various threads, but was taken over—mostly by consultants—as a badge for a loosely defined group of activities, which include explaining to people how to market on Facebook and do influencer marketing. Attempting to derive a definition from the things people are calling social media, is—I think—a doomed enterprise. Instead, I think, we have to look for the definitions out there that make the most sense and seem most logically consistent. Tom Coates (talk) 10:41, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps the definition of social media will continue to change as we change with the medium. Today, I'd present the following definition, which is perhaps different than what i would have said six months ago. As such, here's the proposed definition:

Social media is the combination of activities that come together in a medium using one or more senses of sight, sound, or motion to create visual displays, picture-sharing opportunities, and the creation of shared-meaning through words and pictures by people.

And so the discussion moves forward. :) This cites some of the work by Zuckerberg and Team (Facebook) as a social utility, discusses some of the developmental psychological principles by persons like Dan McAdams (The Stories we Live by), Steven Johnson (Everything Bad is Good for You), and (The Wisdom of Crowds) identified by James Surowiecki. Finally, much discussion has occured regarding the economics of social media in Tapscott and Williams' book, Wikinomics. Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams talk about the future of social media as an interconnected collaborative tool that allows for people to come together and create shared-meaning with expertise and precision.

New Content to Consider

I have added to the Wiki, but will remove (as I think I screwed up the protocol thing) - my hope is to provide more structure to thinking about Social Media - a classification/taxonomy. This enables people to understand the purpose of various social media:

---

Proposed Taxonomy for Social Media:

Mass Communication Networks - These networks enable members to simultaneously send messages to multiple other members. This is what makes them the most powerful from a social marketing perspective. The idea here is that you can use a Mass Communication network to get your message out to a large number of people.

Community Networks - These networks develop a sense of community, but the key difference is they do not enable members to simultaneously send messages to multiple other members. The exception may be a forum, but that requires effort on the part of the intended recipient to find the message.

Directory Networks - These networks provide an opportunity to add your content to a searchable directory.

Specialty Networks - The Specialty Networks are the long tail of Social Media. As more people add networks, this group will be the most exciting (for reaching specific market segments).

Here is a Directory of Networks organized according to the above taxonomy.

---

What are your thoughts?

````John-Scott Dixon (talk) 09:24 MST or GMT-7, October 10, 2008

Sources not meeting WP:RS

After failing to find any evidence of notability and authority of the websites/blogs cited in this article's references, I removed all the citations and added an Unreferenced tag to the article. News hits quoting the blogs' authors don't translate to their websites meeting WP:RS. Flowanda | Talk 01:10, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

List of Social media applications

This list appears to be useful, since it makes this definition more concrete. However, it may be good to format it in a different way, avoiding the use of sub-headings (or use a category instead?. --Nabeth (talk) 10:31, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Not sure it matters but there are some tools in this list that don't exist anymore (Plurk, Jaiku). I know it's tough to stay on top of this stuff with new tools introduced every day. But does anyone think they should be taken down?--Garyedgar (talk) 20:01, 9 September 2009 (UTC) My bad - I was confusing those two with something else...Pownce.

Definition proposal

Kaplan and 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’. They do so in an article in the business horizons which actually tries to define social media and classify the different types of it.

What do you think ? Kaplan Andreas M., Haenlein M. (2010 in print ; 2009 online) Users of the world, unite! The challenges and�opportunities of Social Media, Business Horizons, 53(1) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sabrina111 (talk • contribs) 09:59, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Business use

I removed a paragraph about business use of social media as the info was really only about only one industry and was poorly sourced. Flowanda | Talk 05:27, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Agree that this might not fit under examples, but perhaps there should be a separate section for something like "Examples of Social Media Use in Business." There doesn't appear to be another page where this would fit and seems to be a highly relevant area. There are already lists available that keep track of various examples. Two of these are sources previously deleted by Flowanda : Pharma and Healthcare Social Media Wiki and A wiki of social media marketing examples. For complete disclosure, I originally submitted these two links, as I thought that having examples of business uses would be valuable. Further, I maintain the list on "Dose of Digital." To avoid a COI, I won't update the page directly, but likely will do a request for edit. Jonmrich (talk) 17:00, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Addition of Section "Social Media Use in Business"

I had previously added two "wikis" containing examples of social media use in business (esp. marketing). They can be seen in this revision. This includes these two references: Pharma and Healthcare Social Media Wiki and A wiki of social media marketing examples.

Recently Flowanda deleted this entire section with the logic that it doesn't fit under examples. In hindsight, I agree since the examples listed on the page (e.g., Facebook, Posterous, etc.) are more platforms versus executions. The two wikis referenced above contain examples of marketing efforts using these platforms. I'm proposing a new section to make the page more robust. The use of social media in marketing is certainly major trend and likely to continue and increase. My guess would be that visitors to the social media page would find it useful to have examples of how companies are using social media.

Peter Kim's list is exhaustive and covers numerous industries. The Dose of Digital list covers healthcare and pharma specifically.

I am submitting this as a request for edit versus making the changes myself because I maintain the list on Dose of Digital and am the primary writer and would like to avoid any COI issues affecting this debate.

Thanks for the consideration. Jonmrich (talk) 17:15, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Can you be specific as to the compromise edit you propose? In general, your wikis would be considered primary sources and thus would violate the no original research policy (they also suffer from a reliable source problem, but if you have references to reliable sources discussing those wikis as social media examples, we could cite to those reliable sources. THF (talk) 22:39, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm not proposing that the wikis are themselves social media examples. Rather that the wikis contain examples of social media use in business. The wikis themselves are just a reference. I see from the letter of the law definition of primary sources that the wikis would be described as such, but to me, they are simply a list of sites and not commentary, so they are more of a reference tool (while the blog posts that are also part of the sites would definitely be primary sources). Each of the wikis have a number of links to them that point them out as good reference sources on this topic, but I'm not sure that qualifies. Again, not saying that the wikis are examples, but that they are each a list of examples. I think a section like this might be a fit Social_network_service#Application_domains (see how reference 63 is used). Essentially, the wikis become a secondary source to back up the notion that social media is used for these various applications. Jonmrich (talk) 15:06, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Social TV seen as emerging market by CES 2010

Although Social TV is at its infancy, 2010 Consumer Electonic predicts two emerging markets defining 3D TV and Social TV as the most sought after market combininng social networking phonemona and broadcasting into one. Today' companies like NetStairs.com have pioneered and have reaily demonstrated its availability on laptops while TV and STB manufacturers are in quest of its integration though value added services. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Amordi (talk • contribs) 13:26, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

==Removal of Edits Without Discussion Claiming Poor Source? (PRJournal.org and European Journal on Social Pyschology) Flowanda (talk · contribs) removed my complete section on Social Authority claiming it was poorly sourced. The two sources were http://mprcenter.org and the European Journal of Social Psychology. Furthermore, there were no "spectacular" claims. She disagreed with me on another AFD and now I think this is person. If someone else involved could please review her edits, I would appreciate it. Sara-rockworth (talk) 06:35, 25 August 2010 (UTC)