Stowe Boyd sets forth his ideas for defining social media, social computing and all the related spheres.
I may seem to be splitting hairs, but my purpose here is to simply clarify things. The most general category is social tools, social software, or social applications. For all intents and purposes these are synonyms. These tools are characterized by a variety of features: reliance on social media principles and techniques, tags, an emphasis on the individual rather than membership in organizations or groups, and a sharing model derives from social networking principles.I agree with most of what he's saying. One of the issues is that the vast majority of the PR/business world that is just coming to grips with this stuff doesn't need any more terms. The term Stowe uses is social computing, which is what Forrester calls this space as well.So the topology of social computing — which is the best term to denote the activity of building and using these tools — is like a moebius strip: the applications are characterized by features which are themselves categories used to characterize the apps.
This is one of those exciting/frustrating things about this space, we're taking part in the creation/evolution of the terms, but to outsiders it's very confusing.
Of course the speed of discussion, adoption and abandonment in the social computer world far out-paces the real world. So perhaps by the we agree on something and the rest of the world begins to adopt it, we'll be revising things again.
Visitor Comments
After reading Stowe Boyd’s explanation of social media and social computing, I agree that social media doesn’t need any more terms. This semester I am taking a course in social media and can admit that it’s a little overwhelming at first. For students and PR professionals to really understand and learn about these new communication tools they need to be as simple as possible. Many of these new tools are difficult to use at first, they don’t need to be complicated anymore by being defined and redefined.
Although I don’t think social media needs redefinition, I liked Boyd’s explanation of the term social architecture. I specifically like that he mentioned that “individuals come first”. From my experience with social media so far, I think it’s important to remember that it’s a way to communicate with others, not just a new technology. I believe that sometimes it may be easy to get caught up in the new technology and forget the real reason someone invented the tool, to reach out to people.
Our professor Robert French has just taught our class how to create our own blogs, use Skype and Hotrecorder. All three of these tools are interesting to me and I hope to learn more about other tools.
Posted by: Liz R. | January 28, 2007 11:22 PM