What is Social Media?
The term ‘Social Media’ came from the developed web from 2004, which was originally known as the Web 2.0, but has since been more popular as social media.
All this means is that the web as it was circa 2004, was known as ‘read-only’. People tended to only use for checking emails, the news and other things like that. As we know it now however, it is much more participatory and collaborative, users create their own media, and share it and all get involved, rather than just coming from large companies and fed to the masses, and is now known as the ‘read-write’ web.
More generally we know social media as simply an online platform for people to network and socialise. Some people use it for building an professional online presence, whether it be creative people blogging or Youtubing, and using sites such as Twitter to gain followers, or using sites like LinkedIn to find employers. Social Media can be used to create, or share, many types of media, be it written, videos, images, gifs, audio, the options are limitless.
Some more examples of social media and what they are used for;
Twitter is an extremely popular social media site, where users create ‘tweets’ as a way of sharing media or communicating. These are limited to 140 characters per post, which I think was meant to be innovative but can be incredibly frustrating!
YouTube is perhaps one of the most used sites in the world with over 1 Billion users per month. (Huffington Post) Youtube is used for sharing videos people have created, these can be in the form of vlogs (video-blogs), gameplay and commentary, short films, and even sometimes webisodes.
SoundCloud allows users to upload and share there music or other audio files they create, and comment on other peoples uploads.
Flikr is a photo storage website, that also allows users to share their images and comment on other users images.
Essentially, social media has become a pivotal and integral part of our everyday lives. It has shaped the way we interact with one another, and how we receive information. And has made media much more accessible.
Let’s be honest, how many times a day do you check Facebook?
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