10) you (or someone) else can add tags to stories, and make it easier to search and find related topics based on those tags.
David Dalka
· 2 years ago
Robin - I'd strongly encourage the opposite. Technorati should change it's default search to words, not tags, it's less spammy IMO. David Sifry, what do you think?
Jeremiah Owyang
· 2 years ago
Thanks Robert, there's some great examples here, good clarification.
Jeremiah Owyang
· 2 years ago
Part 2:
Oh yeah, I challenge folks that don't like the term "SOCIAL MEDIA" to provide me with a better term:
We got into this 'debate' in the Media 2.0 workgroup a few weeks ago.
I do agree that the wikipedia entry sucks, but then again, most wiki content is questionable.
briansolis
· 2 years ago
Great post Robert. The wikipedia entry definitely needs CPR. New media, is a perpetually evolving mechanism that advances the sharing of information online, with the current stage simply labeled as social media.
Now that "opportunistic" marketers have hijacked social media, the term is quickly losing its soul. Don't get me wrong, social media, however, still remains important - in principle as it relates to the democratization of news/information.
Now marketers have monetized social media through community marketing, comment marketing, and conversational marketing.
The key point here is that reference to, and the marketing of, social media has spun out of control. Those in the know, I find, refer to the socialization of information by referring to social tools, and the associated technology and applications, rather than fuse marketing and social media...
John C. Welch
· 2 years ago
The media above can’t be changed. A newspaper can’t magically change its stories, even if society decides something in them is incorrect. My blog can be updated for all readers nearly instantly if someone demonstrates that I was wrong on a post.
However, that doesn't mean the correction gets the same amount of hits. Is the correction in a post by itself, merely corrected in the original post or mixed in somewhere else. Do the same number of people who posted the link to the error post separate links to the correction?
The net effect of just redacting the error and fixing it in the original post is probably a worse net effect than with traditional media.
You can interact with my blog. You can leave a comment. Call me an arsehole. Etc. Etc. With the above you can’t interact at all.
That's silly. With newspapers, you can't interact as quickly, but read the "letters to the editor page". Not as widespread as a blog, but then, how many blogs moderate comments, or have comments in a completely separate blog?
With TV and Radio, you're even farther off base, because THOSE allow you to interact in *real time*, something you simply cannot do on a blog. If a radio/tv show allows callins, you can have input WHILE the story is being created, something that you can't do either here or on PodTech. If the show is running a live chat room, it's even more immediate. Blogs, in comparison, allow for no interaction until after the post is made, so in that sense, they're BEHIND Television and Radio.
With the “new media” you can look at my archives and see all posts. Try doing that with a newspaper. Yeah, you can, if you pay the San Jose Mercury News a fee. But it’s not as easy as it is here.
Okay, show me all the archives of your blog before Winer killed the site it was on.
dum-de-dum...Hm? Right, you can't. Meanwhile I can get access to the NYT for what, the last hundred years? "Hard" is a relative term. In your case, since you didn't properly back up your stuff, that part of your blog is gone forever. It seems to me that "impossible" would apply, and you're not the only person to get hit with that. It's harder to GET to data on paper and tape, but it's also harder to as thoroughly destroy it than it is on a web site.
Here on my blog I don’t need to convince a committee to publish. Not true with other media forms. Imagine you walked into CNN and said “hey, I have some cool video, can you publish it?”
Your record WRT to accuracy and fact checking shows you aren't much better than CNN either, and probably a bit worse. Who vets your stories for accuracy other than you? Who even ATTEMPTS to make sure you have all the facts first other than you?
Based on this blog, the answer of course is no one. In fact, if no one calls you on it, you don't even retroactively check your facts. You'll happily leave bad info there unless you get busted.
"Cop didn't see it, I didn't do it" is NOT a commitment to accuracy.
The new media is infinite. The media above all has limitations in terms of either length (a TV station only has 24 hours in a day — over on YouTube, I guarantee they publish a lot more than 24 hours of video in a day) or in quantity (try to convince USA Today to publish a 40,000 word article, or, 500 articles on the same topic).
By the same token, neither TV nor Radio can get killed by their own success. They don't ever have to worry about bandwidth costs exceeding income. In fact, everyone tuning in means MORE success. I've seen a lot of sites die because their bandwidth bills were more than they could pay.
New media is more flexible in certain ways, but it sucks rocks in just as many others. Not a magic spell Robert. Really.
engtech
· 2 years ago
The only thing the term Social Media has going for it is that the abbreviation is S&M.
But very good post.
Jeremiah Owyang
· 2 years ago
LOL Engtech.
Chris Kenton
· 2 years ago
I dug into a semantical deconstruction of "Social Media" at Unica's Marketing Consortium blog a couple of weeks ago. Personally, I don't think the functional definition on Wikipedia is so abhorrent; I think the challenge comes more in understanding the broader implications of the meaning. Technically speaking, we could call it all "media" and it would be accurate, but not meaningful. The trend toward attaching "social" to media is important because it signifies an important shift in how public content is controlled, shaped and consumed, and that in turn shapes what we collectively experience as shared knowledge.
I think it's a little too early to make pronouncements about how important the term "Social Media" is, or whether or not it's lost its soul. It may seem like overripe fruit within the echo chamber of networked pundits, but to the vast majority of business people, marketers, and consumers at large, it's still an emerging concept.
LayZ
· 2 years ago
Shouldn't the workgroup be called something like Media 4.0? I mean, wasn't 1.0 print, 2.0 radio, 3.0, Television?
Greg Gershman
· 2 years ago
I think an important point is that what makes something social media is in how the it is distributed and shared, not in how it is created. Anything can be social media if it is put in the right environment. Case in point: a video of The Daily Show posted to YouTube. It wasn't created as social media, but putting it into the social media environemnt (the web) makes it social.
"With the “new media” you can look at my archives and see all posts. Try doing that with a newspaper. Yeah, you can, if you pay the San Jose Mercury News a fee. But it’s not as easy as it is here."
Since when did they do away with microfiche? I'm could head to my local city or university library and look up copies of newpapers from almost the beginning of their publicaton. For FREE!!! How am I going to look up come bloggers account of the assassination of JFK? The resignation of Nixon? Oh, that's right! I can't. Because this history doesn't go back that far.
LayZ
· 2 years ago
"The new media is infinite. The media above all has limitations in terms of either length (a TV station only has 24 hours in a day — over on YouTube, I guarantee they publish a lot more than 24 hours of video in a day) or in quantity (try to convince USA Today to publish a 40,000 word article, or, 500 articles on the same topic)."
Seems to me the cable news outlets don't really think in terms of 24 hours-they broadcast 24/7. How long has the Anna Nicole Smith story been going on on MSNBC? How long did these outlets stick with the 9/11 story? Longer than 24 hours if memory serves. That was a rather weak argument.
Damon Billian
· 2 years ago
New media does have apparent flaws. At the same time, however, I think there is more real accountability with old media than new media.
I like the fact they tend to balance one another out, not that one is better than the other.
Is new media threatened by the fact that old media is starting to use new media? Many major old media orgs are starting to use new media quite effectively.
Peter
· 2 years ago
Let's PLEASE not 2.0 anything. It's ridiculous.
We are advancing in terms of media, but the 2.0 nomenclature is a poor attempt to pigeon hole progress. Progress either happens or it doesn't.
I don't know about anyone else, but when I see a service labeled "blah 2.0" I run the other way. Numerical nomenclatures are iterative only, such as Linux kernel 2.0, not Internet something or other. The Internet is not iterative in any way.
Right now, for example, the vast majority of the Internet is still IPV4. IPV6 networks abound in Europe and Asia, but they are not in any way Internet 2.0 or 3.0, it's progress.
Let's quit trying to name progress. It either happens or it doesn't. Only marketers seeking disgusting profits ever try to "2.0" web apps.
toivo
· 2 years ago
oh, but you forgot the most important feature ...
new media doesn't make money
Peter
· 2 years ago
@18
LOL... too true. That is too funny.
Kevin Marks
· 2 years ago
This reminds me of an old discussion about social software. Friedrich Hayek famously said that the word 'social' empties the noun it is applied to of their meaning. Hayek goes on: "it has in fact become the most harmful instance of what, after Shakespeare's 'I can suck melancholy out of a song, as a weasel sucks eggs' ( As You Like It , II, 5), some Americans call a 'weasel word'. As a weasel is alleged to be able to empty an egg without leaving a visible sign, so can these words deprive of content any term to which they are prefixed while seemingly leaving them untouched. A weasel word is used to draw the teeth from a concept one is obliged to employ, but from which one wishes to eliminate all implications that challenge one's ideological premises. "
blogger@wordpress
· 2 years ago
new media thinks it is superior because...er..it's not old media
Les Posen
· 2 years ago
Excellent, excellent post Robert! Away from MS, your fredom to think very broadly is coming to the surface... let's see if Mike Gartenberg suffers the converse!
Anyway, I'm preparing a presentation (Keynote of course!) for high school career and guidance psychologists wanting to know about all this "new media stuff" which their young clients keep bringing into the consulting room at school. The mainly over 45 women (and some men) can barely get their heads around using Outlook, so this will be an interesting hour's presentation. Your post has added greatly to my own clarity of thinking, and is so suggestive of new images and movies to include (absolutely minimal text - Keynote, remember!). I'll let you know how I get on in a month, and of course credit where credit is due when I get to the section on the many faces of blogging.
Paul Mendoza
· 2 years ago
But does the perceived value of the information go down as more of it is available? I often wonder that because of how much information is available on the internet today for free. The only cost is the time it takes to find it now.
Dan
· 2 years ago
1. TV and radio can change their stories in the next bulletein. With newspapers I have to wait a day at most, sometimes less (papers have multiple editions). That's quick enough for me.
2. I can write letters to newspapers and call in to radio shows.
3. I don't care what's popular. I'm only interested in, er, what I'm interested in!
4. Most British papers have complete archives. BBC News does too.
5. Mixing media is good, I'll give you that one.
6. The committee is there to maintain the desired type and quality of output - no bad thing.
7. If I want a 40,000 word article I'll buy a book. Youtube will never compete with broadcast TV.
8. I don't have a huge desire to reuse media, but I can link to pretty much any newspaper article, radio show or piece of video via their websites.
9. Not of interest.
At the end of the day I'll always prefer professional quality "old media". And I'd suggest that Podtech is "old media" too. It could easily be a TV show, you're just delivering the content via the net instead of the airwaves.
Howard Greenstein
· 2 years ago
Over at Social Media Club, we think the term has value. What I have noticed, though, is that when talking with "old media" folks, the term "social media" clearly makes them uncomfortable. They are more comfortable with "new media" because they seem to feel somehow less threatened. They believe they understand "new media" and are moving towards it - by putting articles online, allowing video clips to be published. However, I get a distinct "deer-in-headlights" look when I discuss the fact that those same articles and clips are now open for discussion (anywhere), pass along, remix, etc.
I realize that I'm not getting to the core of why "Social Media" is a good term, (however, Jeremiah captures this well in his article) but I haven't had any coffee yet, and I believe my partner in Social Media Club, Chris Heuer, is cooking up a good post on this.
I realize I should add to this comment above, regarding the old media folks who get scared or confused about Social Media - that is the time it becomes my job, OUR job, to help them "get it." We can't be arrogant about this - we should be in a position to be generous and helpful, if we can. The flip side, of course, is that old media needs to be open to dialog about using content in new ways.
Chris Heuer
· 2 years ago
The above trackback references a comment I started to write here, but ended up posting to my own blog as it expanded in scope - the interesting bit begins with the following paragraph:
"Many early adopters are worried that the very idea of authentic human engagement, based on trust and conversations between individual's via the Internet will be corrupted in the way that the original spirit of netiquette was corrupted by spammers – that real world social problems like greed and predatory behaviour will infect our idealistic utopia, ruining it for everyone. They surely have reason to be concerned, even though they are not being completely practical - nor are many focusing their anger at the right people. As Brian Solis pointed out to me this morning "most of the people that need to hear these things, are not even participants in this conversation, and therein lies the problem." Worse, those other people will see many of the angriest voices as indicative of a more serious problem with how things are today and won't ever respond in a way that will let them really understand why it is important.
20: I don't see the connection. I understand how "social" distorts the meaning of justice in "social justice", or how it distorts the meaning of welfare in "social welfare", but other than sounding erudite by association, I don't see in any way how "social" distorts or sucks the meaning out of "media". Can you expand?
Graeme Thickins
· 2 years ago
I think Chris Kenton in #10 brings out key points:
"The trend toward attaching 'social' to media is important because it signifies an important shift in how public content is controlled, shaped and consumed...." and
"I think it’s a little too early to make pronouncements about how important the term 'Social Media' is ... to the vast majority of business people, marketers, and consumers at large, it’s still an emerging concept."
So true. It's going to take mainstream business quite a while to catch up. So many companies now need help, and will need help ongoing, in understanding how to deal with this massive shift.
And I also like the points Paul Medoza raises in #23:
"But does the perceived value of the information go down as more of it is available? I often wonder that because of how much information is available on the internet today for free. The only cost is the time it takes to find it now."
That is a major point: time is the unit of value in play here. How does one decide how to spend one's increasingly precious time? That's why technologies to help individuals and companies measure influence in new media will become so critical.
briansolis
· 2 years ago
I had to throw my hat into the ring. Aside from the conversation on Social Media, what needs to be changed is the Wikipedia entry so that those new to the conversation, will understand what's really going on. Otherwise, we're doomed to continually run through these cycles of explanation and defense instead of focusing on foward-thinking and development.
gwhiz
· 2 years ago
Isn't it funny Guy Kawasaki announces today he's zigging to everyone else's zagging? His "best of" blog postings are going to be appearing in Entreprenuer magazine each month. Sounds kinda bass ackwards to me... But, it's "Guy" and I'd put my money on his zigging any day...
Tom Coates
· 2 years ago
I wrote a piece about the social media term early/middle last year - http://www.plasticbag.org/archives/2006/03/what... - trying to get my head around what people were meaning by the term. I'm not sure it still holds as much water as maybe I'd hoped at the time, and I'm in the process of re-examining it, but it might be of some use.
I think the idea of 'traditional' media versus 'social' media is sort of missing it though - a box of photos is only clumsily considerable as media in the way that we tend to use it. I suspect we might have to reintroduce media (as a variety of ways in which information can be captured and distributed) and disaggregate it somehow into (at least) mass media (in which the channel concentrates on a one-to-many model) and social media (in which there's a more many-to-many relationship).
Ian Ketcheson
· 2 years ago
Late to the party...
The question is: What ARE social media?
Phrasing it in the plural helps to conceptualize what we are talking about. Don't try to define it is a singular term, cuz it isn't just one thing.
John
· 2 years ago
Robert--I really enjoyed your presentation yesterday at the "Exploring the Impact of Social Media" session. You sold me on the value of social media....and how it's transformed the way in which information is disseminated/exchanged.
Are group blogs as well received as indivual blogs? Any advice for those setting up a group blog? Thanks.--John
Barry Hurd
· 2 years ago
I clipped this from a quick article I wrote a few weeks back on my own blog-
"But the real matter of what a Social Media Platform is all about is relationships. It is about human nature and the personal connections we make with information. As the Web is thrust into “2.0″ or perhaps even “2.5″, online wanderers continue to look for one thing- meaningful information.
Search engines like Yahoo and Google have been harvesting data for over a decade, thrusting our personal decisions through an automated process of A + B = C. Along the way, they have dehumanized the very essence of the information. They have disregarded the human equation.
Social Media is all about being human. It is about conversing with your neighbor, sharing ideas with a world famous author, or even sharing a joke with someone around the world. The “big boys” of the search engine world are finding themselves at the mercy of popular opinion as community sites like Myspace and YouTube encourage users to filter information in the most personal way they can."
I graduated from Communication in 1995, just when Gopher started turning into The Internet...and now I am obsolete. Nevertheless, I would like to point out that maybe you shouldn´t worry so much about those "marketing" gurus and fans who are now calling everything "marketing"...it seems to me they are transforming what is simply a new and very interesting worlwide communication phenomena (along with its corresponding social processes and consequences, as any social psychologist will explain) into what they want to be or become, a marketing tool. My message to them would be "go back to your dusty textbooks and get your concepts straight". NOT EVERYTHING in this world is marketing.
Poonam
· 2 years ago
Want more and detaile infromation about Social Media.
hanna
· 2 years ago
will you discuss properly
kalpesh
· 2 years ago
The ideal defination of social media is the place where people can interact without any commercial or political interruptions. Sadly, the so called social media websites are losing their character and are getting more profit conscious. Can they be called social media anymore?
Dave Evans
· 2 years ago
I took a shot at updating the Wiki entry: "Social media: A form of communications, very often associated with marketing, advertising, or persuassive communication, where the users publish the content with the specific intention of sharing it with others."
Recognizing that "marketing" is simply one aspect of SM, it also seems to be a very fundamental one, for a couple of reasons. First, given that we are each subjected to (if you believe it...) something like 3,000 messages per day, then a commnications medium that potentially *that* (by replacing interruptive push with permission-based pull) is very definitely and properly associated with marketing. Second, when I share a photo album, it's to show (you) what I did. When I share a product experience, it's to show you what happened (good or bad). These are the same thing: content that I want to share on the belief that (you) may enjoy it or benefit from it.
So, yah, marketing is a component of SM. It may be "personal marketing" (as in "Look how cool my last birthday party was...don't you wish you'd been here?) or it may be directed at encouraging or dissuading a potential purchase. Either way, the key elements--being able to alter of adapt it, subjecting it to the collective, the act of publishing user-generated content that is displacing centrally-produced, un-changeable content--are applicable to both personal and business (aka "marketing" ) uses of SM.
I'm hopeful for a world without interruption, where the information I need to make an informed choice--business, commerce, political, personal--is immediately available. Social Media seems to deliver exactly that.
Dennis Yu
· 2 years ago
What is Social Media? Come to SocialMedia.com and find out, if I can so shamelessly plug our company. We've got the largest network of application developers on Facebook and some of our guys are making over $10K a day in earnings. There are lots of techniques to become viral, but the next step is monetizing that traffic, which we specialize in.
Contemporary discussions around social media tend to define social media, in contradistinction to traditional media. Does that mean that traditional media i.e. pre-Internet media are unsocial? I think that every communications medium is social in so far it achieves its essential role, that is, to successfully mediate communication between two people. Then it is by definition social. Unsocial media are broken media. The most oft quoted distinction between social and traditional media has been the direction of communication. Social media are two-way while traditional media are one-way. But communication does not have to be two-way to be communication. That is why we speak of one-way communication; because it involves the successful communication of one person’s message to another. But then pre-Internet media are also social. Then why is everybody talking about ‘Social Media’? What is new about them?
Though i read Scoble's post after writing my own on the subject, and think he pretty much captures it, visit my post at http://agoraplace.wordpress.com/2008/01/15/the-... for another take on the subject.
navtej kohli
· 1 year ago
I understand that in the digital world...its a new media platform where u can post, edit, interact on published content...its like putting up adjective clause... content may be blog content, article, video and or audio castng.
Bullie Pups R Us
· 1 year ago
Social media is a must if you own a business. It forms true sound relationships and reputation that are valid and reliable sources. If you have become a target for any resaon of unfaor negative publicity then these relatiopnships will prove essential because they will know you and your ethics in business not just something that mindless or malicious people have chosen to write without validity. Bullie Pups R Us owner.
Bullie Pups R Us
· 1 year ago
Bullie Pups R Us says where would samll businesses be without the social media? We thrive on it!
Theo
· 1 year ago
Mr. Hurd,
Unfortunately while we value human relationships our society has been lacerated from them. We instead fill our intersubjective void with consumption.
(duh) welcome to 1955...
"social" media will thus fall into the same simulacral logic as other forms of media have.
Media is coloured by the specific character of the mode of production in which is has been produced.
Basically, don't put all your eggs in the social media basket because until we create a much more meaningfully intersubjective society that is less alienated and more self-actualized we're fucked no matter what the potential of a technology or a method of communication can potentially offer.
girish laikhra
· 3 months ago
hello guys i am new here dear i read your comment i learn alot of things from your comment it's great dear thanx for this information. Social media is a very nice article..... ==== Girish ==== SEO India--SEO India
dpabst
· 1 year ago
Hey there,
can anybody define the difference between the two abstract terms "Social Media" and "Social Software"? It seems to be quite controversial, since both the terms describe simply one thing, don't they? Software = Media ? What is exactly meant?
Andi
· 1 year ago
Those definitions are not always so important.
Lon Safko
· 11 months ago
I know this is off topic, but I just compiled nearly 50 interviews with the top SVPs and founders of the major social media companies worldwide; Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace, etc. for my new book, The Social Media Bible published by John Wiley & Sons. http:www.TheSocialMediaBible.com/download/ They are 30+/- minute podcasts about how each technology is being used for business. I found it really interesting to hear how people and businesses are using these tools directly from the source. The book is due out April 20th. Lon Safko
Joanne Zimakas
· 11 months ago
Hi, I just finished transcribing all the interviews for The Social Media Bible (www.TheSocialMediaBible.com). I was hired virtually by the author. I only mention this as a testament to the power of social media, or as I like to call it, Social Media ².
I urge all to go to and listen to these nearly 50 interviews with the top SVP's and founders of the major social media companies world wide, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace, etc. They are 30+/- minute podcasts about how each social media technology is being used for business.
philip1111
· 6 months ago
Social media has infuenced many lives today,not only in bad sense but also in good sense!! It has given many good advantages to he human life!! I completely agree with you and am very much impressed with your thoughts and views!! ------------------------- philip mls
Patricia Roy
· 5 months ago
Great practical definition of social media v. traditional media
All Comments
Oh yeah, I challenge folks that don't like the term "SOCIAL MEDIA" to provide me with a better term:
http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2007/01/31/h...
We got into this 'debate' in the Media 2.0 workgroup a few weeks ago.
I do agree that the wikipedia entry sucks, but then again, most wiki content is questionable.
Now that "opportunistic" marketers have hijacked social media, the term is quickly losing its soul. Don't get me wrong, social media, however, still remains important - in principle as it relates to the democratization of news/information.
Now marketers have monetized social media through community marketing, comment marketing, and conversational marketing.
The key point here is that reference to, and the marketing of, social media has spun out of control. Those in the know, I find, refer to the socialization of information by referring to social tools, and the associated technology and applications, rather than fuse marketing and social media...
However, that doesn't mean the correction gets the same amount of hits. Is the correction in a post by itself, merely corrected in the original post or mixed in somewhere else. Do the same number of people who posted the link to the error post separate links to the correction?
The net effect of just redacting the error and fixing it in the original post is probably a worse net effect than with traditional media.
You can interact with my blog. You can leave a comment. Call me an arsehole. Etc. Etc. With the above you can’t interact at all.
That's silly. With newspapers, you can't interact as quickly, but read the "letters to the editor page". Not as widespread as a blog, but then, how many blogs moderate comments, or have comments in a completely separate blog?
With TV and Radio, you're even farther off base, because THOSE allow you to interact in *real time*, something you simply cannot do on a blog. If a radio/tv show allows callins, you can have input WHILE the story is being created, something that you can't do either here or on PodTech. If the show is running a live chat room, it's even more immediate. Blogs, in comparison, allow for no interaction until after the post is made, so in that sense, they're BEHIND Television and Radio.
With the “new media” you can look at my archives and see all posts. Try doing that with a newspaper. Yeah, you can, if you pay the San Jose Mercury News a fee. But it’s not as easy as it is here.
Okay, show me all the archives of your blog before Winer killed the site it was on.
dum-de-dum...Hm? Right, you can't. Meanwhile I can get access to the NYT for what, the last hundred years? "Hard" is a relative term. In your case, since you didn't properly back up your stuff, that part of your blog is gone forever. It seems to me that "impossible" would apply, and you're not the only person to get hit with that. It's harder to GET to data on paper and tape, but it's also harder to as thoroughly destroy it than it is on a web site.
Here on my blog I don’t need to convince a committee to publish. Not true with other media forms. Imagine you walked into CNN and said “hey, I have some cool video, can you publish it?”
Your record WRT to accuracy and fact checking shows you aren't much better than CNN either, and probably a bit worse. Who vets your stories for accuracy other than you? Who even ATTEMPTS to make sure you have all the facts first other than you?
Based on this blog, the answer of course is no one. In fact, if no one calls you on it, you don't even retroactively check your facts. You'll happily leave bad info there unless you get busted.
"Cop didn't see it, I didn't do it" is NOT a commitment to accuracy.
The new media is infinite. The media above all has limitations in terms of either length (a TV station only has 24 hours in a day — over on YouTube, I guarantee they publish a lot more than 24 hours of video in a day) or in quantity (try to convince USA Today to publish a 40,000 word article, or, 500 articles on the same topic).
By the same token, neither TV nor Radio can get killed by their own success. They don't ever have to worry about bandwidth costs exceeding income. In fact, everyone tuning in means MORE success. I've seen a lot of sites die because their bandwidth bills were more than they could pay.
New media is more flexible in certain ways, but it sucks rocks in just as many others. Not a magic spell Robert. Really.
But very good post.
I think it's a little too early to make pronouncements about how important the term "Social Media" is, or whether or not it's lost its soul. It may seem like overripe fruit within the echo chamber of networked pundits, but to the vast majority of business people, marketers, and consumers at large, it's still an emerging concept.
I wrote a post about this on my blog a while back
Since when did they do away with microfiche? I'm could head to my local city or university library and look up copies of newpapers from almost the beginning of their publicaton. For FREE!!! How am I going to look up come bloggers account of the assassination of JFK? The resignation of Nixon? Oh, that's right! I can't. Because this history doesn't go back that far.
Seems to me the cable news outlets don't really think in terms of 24 hours-they broadcast 24/7. How long has the Anna Nicole Smith story been going on on MSNBC? How long did these outlets stick with the 9/11 story? Longer than 24 hours if memory serves. That was a rather weak argument.
I like the fact they tend to balance one another out, not that one is better than the other.
Is new media threatened by the fact that old media is starting to use new media? Many major old media orgs are starting to use new media quite effectively.
We are advancing in terms of media, but the 2.0 nomenclature is a poor attempt to pigeon hole progress. Progress either happens or it doesn't.
I don't know about anyone else, but when I see a service labeled "blah 2.0" I run the other way. Numerical nomenclatures are iterative only, such as Linux kernel 2.0, not Internet something or other. The Internet is not iterative in any way.
Right now, for example, the vast majority of the Internet is still IPV4. IPV6 networks abound in Europe and Asia, but they are not in any way Internet 2.0 or 3.0, it's progress.
Let's quit trying to name progress. It either happens or it doesn't. Only marketers seeking disgusting profits ever try to "2.0" web apps.
new media doesn't make money
LOL... too true. That is too funny.
Friedrich Hayek famously said that the word 'social' empties the noun it is applied to of their meaning. Hayek goes on:
"it has in fact become the most harmful instance of what, after Shakespeare's 'I can suck melancholy out of a song, as a weasel sucks eggs' ( As You Like It , II, 5), some Americans call a 'weasel word'. As a weasel is alleged to be able to empty an egg without leaving a visible sign, so can these words deprive of content any term to which they are prefixed while seemingly leaving them untouched. A weasel word is used to draw the teeth from a concept one is obliged to employ, but from which one wishes to eliminate all implications that challenge one's ideological premises. "
Anyway, I'm preparing a presentation (Keynote of course!) for high school career and guidance psychologists wanting to know about all this "new media stuff" which their young clients keep bringing into the consulting room at school. The mainly over 45 women (and some men) can barely get their heads around using Outlook, so this will be an interesting hour's presentation. Your post has added greatly to my own clarity of thinking, and is so suggestive of new images and movies to include (absolutely minimal text - Keynote, remember!). I'll let you know how I get on in a month, and of course credit where credit is due when I get to the section on the many faces of blogging.
2. I can write letters to newspapers and call in to radio shows.
3. I don't care what's popular. I'm only interested in, er, what I'm interested in!
4. Most British papers have complete archives. BBC News does too.
5. Mixing media is good, I'll give you that one.
6. The committee is there to maintain the desired type and quality of output - no bad thing.
7. If I want a 40,000 word article I'll buy a book. Youtube will never compete with broadcast TV.
8. I don't have a huge desire to reuse media, but I can link to pretty much any newspaper article, radio show or piece of video via their websites.
9. Not of interest.
At the end of the day I'll always prefer professional quality "old media". And I'd suggest that Podtech is "old media" too. It could easily be a TV show, you're just delivering the content via the net instead of the airwaves.
I realize that I'm not getting to the core of why "Social Media" is a good term, (however, Jeremiah captures this well in his article) but I haven't had any coffee yet, and I believe my partner in Social Media Club, Chris Heuer, is cooking up a good post on this.
Howard Greenstein
CEO/Executive Director, Social Media Club
http://www.socialmediaclub.com/
The flip side, of course, is that old media needs to be open to dialog about using content in new ways.
"Many early adopters are worried that the very idea of authentic human engagement, based on trust and conversations between individual's via the Internet will be corrupted in the way that the original spirit of netiquette was corrupted by spammers – that real world social problems like greed and predatory behaviour will infect our idealistic utopia, ruining it for everyone. They surely have reason to be concerned, even though they are not being completely practical - nor are many focusing their anger at the right people. As Brian Solis pointed out to me this morning "most of the people that need to hear these things, are not even participants in this conversation, and therein lies the problem." Worse, those other people will see many of the angriest voices as indicative of a more serious problem with how things are today and won't ever respond in a way that will let them really understand why it is important.
This is why we need to come together... [cont]
"The trend toward attaching 'social' to media is important because it signifies an important shift in how public content is controlled, shaped and consumed...." and
"I think it’s a little too early to make pronouncements about how important the term 'Social Media' is ... to the vast majority of business people, marketers, and consumers at large, it’s still an emerging concept."
So true. It's going to take mainstream business quite a while to catch up. So many companies now need help, and will need help ongoing, in understanding how to deal with this massive shift.
And I also like the points Paul Medoza raises in #23:
"But does the perceived value of the information go down as more of it is available? I often wonder that because of how much information is available on the internet today for free. The only cost is the time it takes to find it now."
That is a major point: time is the unit of value in play here. How does one decide how to spend one's increasingly precious time? That's why technologies to help individuals and companies measure influence in new media will become so critical.
I think the idea of 'traditional' media versus 'social' media is sort of missing it though - a box of photos is only clumsily considerable as media in the way that we tend to use it. I suspect we might have to reintroduce media (as a variety of ways in which information can be captured and distributed) and disaggregate it somehow into (at least) mass media (in which the channel concentrates on a one-to-many model) and social media (in which there's a more many-to-many relationship).
The question is: What ARE social media?
Phrasing it in the plural helps to conceptualize what we are talking about. Don't try to define it is a singular term, cuz it isn't just one thing.
Are group blogs as well received as indivual blogs? Any advice for those setting up a group blog? Thanks.--John
"But the real matter of what a Social Media Platform is all about is relationships. It is about human nature and the personal connections we make with information. As the Web is thrust into “2.0″ or perhaps even “2.5″, online wanderers continue to look for one thing- meaningful information.
Search engines like Yahoo and Google have been harvesting data for over a decade, thrusting our personal decisions through an automated process of A + B = C. Along the way, they have dehumanized the very essence of the information. They have disregarded the human equation.
Social Media is all about being human. It is about conversing with your neighbor, sharing ideas with a world famous author, or even sharing a joke with someone around the world. The “big boys” of the search engine world are finding themselves at the mercy of popular opinion as community sites like Myspace and YouTube encourage users to filter information in the most personal way they can."
Recognizing that "marketing" is simply one aspect of SM, it also seems to be a very fundamental one, for a couple of reasons. First, given that we are each subjected to (if you believe it...) something like 3,000 messages per day, then a commnications medium that potentially *that* (by replacing interruptive push with permission-based pull) is very definitely and properly associated with marketing. Second, when I share a photo album, it's to show (you) what I did. When I share a product experience, it's to show you what happened (good or bad). These are the same thing: content that I want to share on the belief that (you) may enjoy it or benefit from it.
So, yah, marketing is a component of SM. It may be "personal marketing" (as in "Look how cool my last birthday party was...don't you wish you'd been here?) or it may be directed at encouraging or dissuading a potential purchase. Either way, the key elements--being able to alter of adapt it, subjecting it to the collective, the act of publishing user-generated content that is displacing centrally-produced, un-changeable content--are applicable to both personal and business (aka "marketing" ) uses of SM.
I'm hopeful for a world without interruption, where the information I need to make an informed choice--business, commerce, political, personal--is immediately available. Social Media seems to deliver exactly that.
Dennis Yu
Analytics
dennis@SocialMedia.com
The most oft quoted distinction between social and traditional media has been the direction of communication. Social media are two-way while traditional media are one-way. But communication does not have to be two-way to be communication. That is why we speak of one-way communication; because it involves the successful communication of one person’s message to another. But then pre-Internet media are also social. Then why is everybody talking about ‘Social Media’? What is new about them?
Though i read Scoble's post after writing my own on the subject, and think he pretty much captures it, visit my post at http://agoraplace.wordpress.com/2008/01/15/the-... for another take on the subject.
Unfortunately while we value human relationships our society has been lacerated from them. We instead fill our intersubjective void with consumption.
(duh) welcome to 1955...
"social" media will thus fall into the same simulacral logic as other forms of media have.
Media is coloured by the specific character of the mode of production in which is has been produced.
Basically, don't put all your eggs in the social media basket because until we create a much more meaningfully intersubjective society that is less alienated and more self-actualized we're fucked no matter what the potential of a technology or a method of communication can potentially offer.
comment it's great dear thanx for this information.
Social media is a very nice article.....
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Girish
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SEO India--SEO India
can anybody define the difference between the two abstract terms "Social Media" and "Social Software"? It seems to be quite controversial, since both the terms describe simply one thing, don't they? Software = Media ? What is exactly meant?
Lon Safko
I urge all to go to and listen to these nearly 50 interviews with the top SVP's and founders of the major social media companies world wide, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace, etc. They are 30+/- minute podcasts about how each social media technology is being used for business.
It has given many good advantages to he human life!!
I completely agree with you and am very much impressed with your thoughts and views!!
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philip
mls