Social media is media designed to be disseminated through social interaction, created using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques (Wikipedia.org). These days we hear lot of social media phrase, but it is very difficult to get answer of what is social media? If Facebook is social media site, and Stumbleupon is a social media site then Wikipedia is also a social media site. So why we create difference between them as all these sites provide information as well as interaction between different users. The best way to get an answer is break the term social media. First what is media? Media is an instrument of communication; examples are newspaper, radio and television. Similarly social media would be a social instrument of communication. The web 2.0 is all about social media because it just not only provides information but also interacts with readers. This interaction can be simple as asking for your comments or letting you vote an article or can be as much complex as recommending a movies to you based on the ratings of other peoples with similar interests. In regular media there is one way traffic means you can only read a newspaper or listen to a radio or watch television, but very limited ability of give thoughts on matter which are most important. On the other hand social media provide you two way street that gives you the ability to communicate. As we have learned about social media now we move to social media websites. Social media is a very broad term which covers a big range of websites. But the common link between these websites is they give the ability to interact with website and interact with other visitors. Here are some of social media sites. Social bookmarking sites interact by tagging websites and searching through websites bookmarked by other peoples like Del.icio.us, Stumbleupon, Blinklist. Social news sites interact by voting for articles and commenting on them like Digg, Propeller, Reddit. Social networking sites interact by adding friends, commenting on profiles, joining groups and having discussions like Facebook, Hi5, Last.FM. Social Photo and Video Sharing sites interact by sharing photos or videos and commenting on user submissions like YouTube, Flickr. Wikis interact by adding articles and editing existing articles like Wikipedia, Wikia. There are other social media websites which invites you to interact with the site and with other visitors. It is easy to confuse social media with social news because we often refer to members of the news as "the media." Adding to the confusion is the fact that a social news site is also a social media site because it falls into that broader category. But social news is not the same thing as social media anymore than a banana is the same thing as fruit. A banana is a type of fruit, but fruit can also be grapes, strawberries, or lemons. And while social news is social media, social networking and wikis are also social media. So Social Media is a very effective tool. Social media network is a marketplace where people can share their opinions, experiences, perspectives and perceptions with others. Popular social mediums are message boards, blogs, audio and video, podcasts and wikis.
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