Talk:Social media

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Articles for deletion This article was nominated for deletion on 27 July 2007. The result of the discussion was no consensus, default to keep.
This article is part of WikiProject Social media, a project to improve Wikipedia's articles related to Social media. For guidelines see the project page and Wikipedia:Contributing FAQ.

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)

Contents

[edit] '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)

[edit] 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)


[edit] 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

[edit] '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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)


[edit] 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)