Some social media vehicles have already been mentioned the previous articles but in this article 15 social media categorized by Safko and Brakd (2009) that form social media ecosystem is briefly explained. All of them are realized by Web 2.0 technologies.
1. Social networking: This is a common place online that any trusted network, a group of like-minded people who have come together to share thoughts, ideas and information about themselves. Examples of social networking site include Facebook, Linked, Bebo and MySpace, to just name a few.
2. Publish: This is a broad category that might be a little misleading because technically people can publish all kinds of content, including video, audio, photos and games as well as texts of e-mail, web pages, blogs, Internet forums and wikis. Examples of tools, companies, tools and applications include Blogger, Constant Contact, Joomla, Knol, Slide Share, TypePad and Wikia.
3. Photo: Picture is worth a thousand words and that is where the value of being able to sort, organize and share photos with people in one’s network comes in. Examples of companies, tools and application include Flickr, Photobucket, Picasa, Radar.net, Slide, Smug Mug, Twixr and Zoomr.
4. Audio: Now iPod have become such a ubiquitous and indispensable device that people want to take around with them to listen to audio contents, and more than 30 million people subscribe to podcasts already, and therefore audio can be a critical aspect of a social media strategy. Examples of companies, tools and applications include iTunes, PodBean, Podcast.net and Rapsody.
5. Video: Video recording could also be considered a podcast because the iPod and other digital playback devices display photographs, audio and video but in this article audio recordings as a podcast and video recordings as video or vlog (comes from Video web LOG as the word blog stands for weB LOG). Video recording refers to Web 2.0 services with the ability to deliver video content on demand that can also be shared and promoted across social networks. Examples of companies, tools and applications include Brightcove, Google Video, Hulu, Metacafe, Viddler and YouTube.
6. Microblogging: This is text messaging with character limitation (e.g. 140 characters) but can be considered as a cross between blogging and text messaging. Microblogging includes the ability to send messages, audio, video and even attached files from a computer or mobile phone and offer business in particular a versatile way to interact with employees and customers, and therefore has the potential to be used in variety of settings for variety of objectives. Examples of companies include Plurt, Twitter and Twitxr.
7. Livecasting: This is a category of social media tools that enables people to broadcast information (video and audio) using the Internet/Web 2.0 technologies, distributing (or streaming) that content to his/her network. For businesses, these applications have a variety of uses on the communication, collaboration, entertainment and education settings. Examples of companies, tools and applications include BlogTalkRadio, Llive 365, Justins.tv, SHOUTcast and TalkShoe.
8. Virtual Worlds: These present a new frontier for businesses with the possibility of real-time interaction with employees, customers and vendors. Other businesses are also pursuing ways to sell actual products and services in a virtual world. The 5 key players in this space are Active Worlds, Kaneva, Second Life, There and ViOS.
9. Gaming: Online gaming is one of the Internet phenomena that are continuously gaining popularity, being a magnet that attracts large numbers of people (gamers) with a common interest. Gamers currently represent a special kind of social network but there is an opportunity in category to influence word-of-mouth promotion. Some applications (games) include 4x4 Evolution, Entropia Universe, EverQuest and World of Warcraft.
10. Productivity Applications: These are all of business productivity tools. Examples of companies, tools and applications include Acteva, AOL, Google Alerts, Google Gmail, MSSTAG, TiddyWiki, Yahoo! And Zoho.
11. Aggregators: This is about market and business intelligence which can be an extremely valuable part of social media strategy. Some aggregators gather information and data in one place for easy access and are directed to keep it updated, and some others additionally leverage the wisdom of the crowd and tell what other people are saying about a particular product, service or brand. Examples of applications include Digg, FriendFeed, Google Reader, iGoogle, My Yahoo!, Reddit and Yelp.
12. RSS: This is an acronym for Rich Site Summary, which is a one-click solution that allows all one’s content to be sent to his/her followers the moment the content is published. This is extremely valuable for a user when he/she has a favourite blog or regularly visits a website that provides updated information with specific value to him/her. Examples of companies, tools and applications include Atom, FeedBurner, PingShot and RSS 2.0.
13. Search: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) are techniques by which web pages, photos and even videos are optimized to maximize search engine rankings. The ability to search and easily locate a variety of content on the web represents a tactical advantage to the business. Examples of companies, tools and applications include Google Search, Yahoo! Search, Bing of Microsoft, EveryZing, Ice Rocket and Meta Tube.
14. Mobile: Mobile phones are the epitome of both digital convergence and social media, and probably have contributed much to advance social media than any other single device. And today, iPhone, BlackBerry and other similar device functions as an operational control centre for people’s business because many of the social media tools in the ecosystem function just as well with mobile devices as they do with computer and therefore this category is rapidly growing. Examples of tools and applications include airG, AOL Mobile, Brightkite, CallWave, Jott, Jumbuck and SMS.ac.
15. Interpersonal: This refers to the many applications and websites in the social media ecosphere that allows people to communicate live, real time on a one-to-one, one-to-many, many-to-one, and many-to-many basis. Examples of one-to-one exchange tools include Skype, AOL Instant Messager, GTal, Apple’s iChat and Jott. One-to-many tools include Jott, Twitter, Yahoo! Messenger, Microsoft Live Messenger and Doodle. Many-to-many applications include GoToMeeting, WebEx and Adobe Connect. Many-to-one could be considered page aggregators where the conversations of many different bloggers are complied into a web page or even Google Alerts where alerts about many different mentions of one’s search terms are sent directly to his/her personal e-mail.
How the above social media categories form an organic structure together with Website(s) and e-mail marketing comes next, so that use of Web 2.0 technologies companies will be better understood in the upcoming articles.
References:-
Safko, Lon and Brake, David K (2009), The Social Media Bible – Tactics, Tools & Strategies for Business Success. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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