After a brief hiatus, I’m back to address some some questions that we’ve been getting from our client and friends alike. With the arrival of the likes of MySpace and Facebook into the public mainstream consciousness, we are often asked about Social Media.

‘Social Computing is not a fad. Nor is
it something that will pass you or
your company by. Gradually, Social
Computing will impact almost every
role, at every kind of company, in all
parts of the world.’
– Forrester Research, Social Computing - How Networks
Erode Institutional Power, And What to Do About It

Is it a big deal? In a single word…YES!

As tracked by Technorati, a specialist site that follows blogs, there are currently just short of about 100 MILLION blogs and this number is currently doubling every 6 months. There are about 100 million videos being watch on YouTube.com every day…and this number exceed the total number of Google searchs performed in the same period!

So, what IS Social Media? Well, there are a lot of definitions, but they all involve online media and applications that have these features in common:

Participation - encourage contribution and feedback,
blurs lines between content creator and user

Openness - open to feedback and participation, lack
of barriers to access and use of content

Conversation - conventional media is about
broadcast, social media is two-way

Community - allows communities to form quickly and
communicate effectively around common interests

Connectedness - online links and combining different
kinds of media in one place (mashup)

Next time, we’re going to talk a bit about each of the following common types of Social Media:

Blogs

Wikis

Podcasts

Forums

Social Networks

Content Communities

Until next time…keep learning!