Defining social media

Brian Solis at PR 2.0: Defining social media.

There are many of us who have spent
the last year defining and defending Social Media as a legitimate
classification for new media as well as documenting the tools that
facilitate the socialization of content, including Stowe Boyd, Robert Scoble, Jay Rosen, Chris Heuer, Jeremiah Owyang, Shel Israel, Todd Defren, Brian Oberkirch, Chris Saad, Jerry Bowles, Marianne Richmond, JD Lasica, Rohit Bhargava, Jeremy Pepper, Greg Narain, et al. However, we always seem to run around in circles defining it and re-defining it, over and over again.

I originally stated that the Wikipedia
definition was in dire need of reform, otherwise we’re doomed to
continually run through these cycles of explanation and defense,
instead of focusing on foward-thinking, collaboration, and development.
A more informative and clearer definition will benefit those new to the
conversation as well as strengthening and uniting the effort of those
visionaries who will continue to carry the flag forward.

The
time is now to define social media and I would like to invite those
part of the bigger conversation to contribute to the common collective.

Here is the current definition on Wikipedia:

Social media describes the online
technologies and practices that people use to share opinions, insights,
experiences, and perspectives.Social media can take many different
forms, including text, images, audio, and video. These sites typically
use technologies such as blogs, message boards, podcasts, wikis, and vlogs to allow users to interact. A few prominent examples of social media applications are Wikipedia (reference), MySpace (social networking), Gather.com (social networking),YouTube (video sharing), Second Life (virtual reality), Digg (news sharing), Flickr (photo sharing) and Miniclip (game sharing).
…

Brian then goes on to suggest adjustments the entry on Wikipedia. We’re sure to see some changes in the coming weeks.

JD Lasica, founder of Inside Social Media, is also a fiction author and the co-founder of the cruise discovery engine Cruiseable. See his About page, contact JD or follow him on Twitter.