Buzzgain

“Dad , is social media similar to social studies, the subject we study at school?” quizzed my 7 year old trisha. Well social studies involves the study of the past and current human behaviour and social media or to be specific social media concepts helps in discovering and engaging with people who will help your business thrive or share your thoughts or give opinion/suggestions on a particular topic/issue. As Wikipedia explains “Social media is content created by people using highly accessible and scalable publishing technologies. At its most basic sense, social media is a shift in how people discover, read and share news, information and content. It’s a set of technologies, tools and platforms facilitating the discovery, participation and sharing of content.”

In today’s social economy – where attention is a precious commodity, it’s important to know the five social media concepts that is influencing the online world

1) Web 2.0 and 3.0 – Web 2.0 refers to a perceived second generation of web development and design, that facilitates communication, secure information sharing, interoperability, and collaboration on the World Wide Web. A main finding of an independent, global study into the state of Web 2.0 use revealed that
Ninety-five per cent of respondents currently allow employee access to some Web 2.0 sites and applications – most commonly webmail, mashups and wikis.

Web 3.0 as the name suggests is the advanced form of web 2.0 which is poised to facilitate the internet users to such an extent that it may understand the browser’s need as and when he searches the web. For eg. You are a budding script writer but are unaware of approaching the right production house or meeting the ‘right’ people, Instead of doing multiple search, you can type a complex sentence or two in your web 3.0 browser . for eg.”Which are the best production houses in this city and how should I go about approaching a producer?”

2) Blogs – Blogs are personal websites, which are created by individuals. “Once a story is on a blog, keeping a lid on it is impossible,” says Neville Hobson, an independent consultant on blogging and podcasting. Blogging just for the sake of it will undoubtedly make your blog less popular or least visited. Blogging is a serious activity, which requires dedication, time and knowledge. The best way to start a blog is to choose a topic of interest and start writing on it. Some of the popular research tools for finding blogs include technorati, blogsearch.google, ysearchblog, feedster

3) Forums – Internet forums are discussion areas where visitors or users of that particular site can discuss or share their opinions. It’s an interactive and generally a friendly medium where users may develop a social bond. For eg. A video game online forum will be typically visited by people interested to know the latest developments in the gaming world or to learn about the latest video games to hit the stores!

4) Social networking – Social networking websites function like an online community of internet users.  Depending on the website in question, many of these online community members share a common interest such as hobbies, religion, or politics or professional pursuits.  Once you are granted access to a social networking website you can begin to socialize.  Some of the popular social networking sites include orkut, linkedin, facebook etc.

5) Social news: Social News websites are communities which allow its users to submit news stories, articles and media (videos/pictures) and share them with other users or the general public. Some of these articles will be given more visibility, depending on various factors such as the number of user votes for each item. There are 100’s of social news websites that are not functional probably due to poor marketing strategy or limited inflow of news. Some of the social news websites that are thriving probably due to their unvarying news update skills and introducing user friend features. Popular social news sites are reddit, digg, mixx, I am bored etc

As I explain to you my dear about this social media concepts, I am sure there could be a gamut of emerging concepts and trends that is likely to keep the internet users awestruck and hooked to the net forever!