SOCIAL MEDIA CHEAT SHEET
Note: This is a compliation of descriptions of social media terms as listed on
Wikipedia.
Del.icio.us (pronounced "delicious") is a social bookmarking web service for storing,
sharing, and discovering web bookmarks. The site was founded by Joshua Schachter
in late 2003 and acquired by Yahoo! in 2005. It has more than three million users
and 100 million bookmarked URLs.[1]
Del.icio.us uses a non-hierarchical keyword categorization system in which users can
tag each of their bookmarks with a number of freely chosen keywords (cf.
folksonomy). A combined view of everyone's bookmarks with a given tag is
available; for instance, the URL "http://del.icio.us/tag/wiki" displays all of the most
recent links tagged "wiki". Its collective nature makes it possible to view bookmarks
added by similar-minded users.
Del.icio.us has a "hotlist" on its home page and "popular" and "recent" pages, which
help to make the website a conveyor of internet memes and trends.
Many features have contributed to making Del.icio.us one of the most popular social
bookmarking services.[2] These include the website's simple interface, human-
readable URL scheme, a novel domain name, a simple REST API, and RSS feeds for
web syndication.
Use of Del.icio.us is free. The source code of the site is not available, but a user's
own data is freely downloadable through the site's API in an XML or JSON format,
and can also be exported to a standard Netscape bookmarks format.
All bookmarks posted to Del.icio.us are publicly viewable by default, although users
can mark specific bookmarks as private, and imported bookmarks are private by
default. The public aspect is emphasized; the site is not focused on storing private
("not shared") bookmark collections.[citation needed] Del.icio.us linkrolls, tagrolls, network
badges, RSS feeds, and the site's daily blog posting feature can be used to display
bookmarks on weblogs.
Digg is a website made for people to discover and share content from anywhere on
the Internet, by submitting links and stories, and voting and commenting on
submitted links and stories, in a social and democratic spirit. Voting stories up and
down is the site's cornerstone function, respectively called digging and burying. Many
stories get submitted every day, but only the most digged ones appear on the front
page.
Digg's popularity has prompted the creation of other social networking sites with a
story submission and voting system. Digg has grown large enough that submissions
sometimes create a sudden increase of traffic to the "dugg" website. This is referred
to by some Digg users as the "Digg effect" and by some others as the site being
"dugg to death".
Furl (from File Uniform Resource Locators) is a free social bookmarking website that
allows members to store searchable copies of webpages and share them with others.
Every member receives 5 gigabytes of storage space.
Internet meme is a neologism used to describe a catchphrase or concept that
spreads in a fast way from person to person via the Internet.[1] The term is a
reference to the concept of memes, although this concept refers to a much broader
category of cultural information. At its most basic, an Internet meme is simply the
propagation of a digital file or hyperlink from one person to others using methods
available through the Internet (for example, email, blogs, social networking sites,
instant messaging, etc.).
Micro-blogging is a form of blogging that allows users to write brief text updates
(usually less than 200 characters) and publish them, either to be viewed by anyone
or by a restricted group (i.e. the text-based sensual porn industry) which can be
chosen by the user. These messages can be submitted by a variety of means,
including text messaging, instant messaging, email, MP3 or the web.
The most popular service is called Twitter, which was launched in July 2006 and won
the Web Award in the blog category at the 2007 South by Southwest Conference in
Austin, Texas.[1] The main competitor to Twitter is Jaiku.
Recently, however, many new services, with the same feature of micro-blogging are
being born. Digg founder Kevin Rose, together with three other developers recently
launched a service called Pownce, which integrates micro-blogging with file-sharing
and event invitations.
The popular social networking websites Facebook and MySpace also have a micro-
blogging feature, called "status update".
Mister Wong - Save your Favorites on Mister Wong, and have access to them
anytime and from anywhere! Collect interesting links, keep them private or share
them with the community and your buddies. Create networks, rate links, and be
inspired - wong the web!
Mixx is a user-driven social media web site that serves to help users submit or find
content by peers based on interest and location. It combines social networking and
bookmarking with web syndication, blogging and personalization tools.
Users of Mixx can control a personalized blend of web content that includes text-
based articles, images and videos. Mixx users can search and discover media
relevant to their interests, and interact with friends and other Mixx users who share
their common interests.
The content on Mixx comes from various online sources, such as news services and
online publishers of media such as video, images, and various other content. Mixx
users can submit items from any online source, including their own websites.
Mixx has received partnerships with a growing list of online publishing outlets
including USA Today, Reuters, The Los Angeles Times and The Weather Channel.
New media is the marriage of mediated communications technologies with digital
computers.
A host of companies, organizations, and institutions describe themselves as "new
media". With this all-encompassing use of the term, "new media" can refer to any
type of media that is used for public relations or marketing, if it is more electronically
sophisticated than an animated flashing neon sign. Because this broad use of the
term has a vague definition, it may be considered something of a buzzword.
Newsvine is a community website focused on news stories and opinions. Users can
write articles, post links to external content, and chat about article pages created by
both users and by professional journalists.
Propeller, previously known as Netscape.com, is a social news aggregator operated
by AOL-Netscape. It is similar to Digg; users can vote for which stories are to be
included on the front page and may comment on them as well.
Reddit (also reddit) is a social news website on which users can post links to
content on the web. Other users may then vote the posted links up or down, causing
them to appear more or less prominently on the Reddit home page.
The site has discussion areas in which users may discuss the posted links and vote
for or against others' comments. When there are enough votes against a given
comment, it will not be displayed by default, although a reader can display it through
a link or preference. Users who submit articles which other users like and
subsequently "vote up" receive "karma" points as a reward for submitting interesting
articles.
Reddit also includes several topical sections called "subreddits", which focus on
specific topics, such as programming, science, "Not Safe for Work", and politics.
There are dozens of subreddits.[1]
The Reddit logo changes for various holidays and often for no reason, paying
homage to Star Wars, classic video games, and geek culture in general.
Although Reddit is not moderated by its owners, the Reddit developers have built a
system to aid with curtailing spam, which works based on the "reports" of users.
RSS is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated content such
as blog entries, news headlines, and podcasts in a standardized format.[2] An RSS
document (which is called a "feed" or "web feed"[3] or "channel") contains either a
summary of content from an associated web site or the full text. RSS makes it
possible for people to keep up with web sites in an automated manner that can be
piped into special programs or filtered displays.[3]
The benefit of RSS is the aggregation of content from multiple Web sources in one
place. RSS content can be read using software called an "RSS reader", "feed reader"
or an "aggregator", which can be web-based or desktop-based. A standardized XML
file format allows the information to be published once and viewed by many different
programs. The user subscribes to a feed by entering the feed's link into the reader or
by clicking an RSS icon in a browser that initiates the subscription process. The RSS
reader checks the user's subscribed feeds regularly for new content, downloading
any updates that it finds and provides a user interface to monitor and read the feeds.
ShareThis – Applicaton that lets you instantly access all of your profiles, blogs,
friends, and contacts for easy sharing and updating. ShareThis allows you to easily
share to any of your friends by importing your contacts from Gmail, Yahoo,
Facebook, MySpace, AIM, Outlook, and more.
Slashdot, often abbreviated as /.[1], is a technology-related news website owned by
SourceForge, Inc.. It features user-submitted and editor-evaluated current affairs
news with a "nerdy" slant. Each story on the site has an Internet forum-style
comments section attached. The name "Slashdot" is described by the site's owners
as "a sort of obnoxious parody of a URL", chosen to confuse those who tried to
pronounce the URL of the site ("h-t-t-p-colon-slash-slash-slashdot-dot-org").[2]
Social media is an umbrella term that defines the various activities that integrate
technology, social interaction, and the construction of words, pictures, videos and
audio. This interaction, and the manner in which information is presented, depends
on the varied perspectives and "building" of shared meaning, as people share their
stories, and understandings.
Social media can take many different forms, including Internet forums, message
boards, weblogs, wikis, podcasts, pictures and video. Technologies include: blogs,
picture-sharing, vlogs, wall-postings, email, instant messaging, music-sharing,
crowdsourcing, and voice over IP, to name a few. Examples of social media
applications are Google Groups (reference, social networking), Wikipedia (reference),
MySpace (social networking), Facebook (social networking), Last.fm (personal
music), YouTube (social networking and video sharing), Second Life (virtual reality),
Flickr (photo sharing), Twitter (social networking and microblogging) and other
microblogs are Jaiku and Pownce. Many of these social media services can be
integrated via social network aggregation platforms like Mybloglog and Plaxo.
Social media or social networking (one example of social media) has a number of
characteristics that make it fundamentally different from traditional media such as
newspapers, television, books, and radio. Primarily, social media depends on
interactions between people as the discussion and integration of words builds
shared-meaning, using technology as a conduit.
Social media utilities create opportunities for the use of both inductive and deductive
logos by its users. Claims or warrants are quickly transitioned into generalizations
due to the manner in which shared statements are posted and viewed by all. The
speed of communication, breadth, and depth, and ability to see how the words build
a case solicits the use of rhetoric. Induction is frequently used as a means to validate
or authenticate different users' statements and words. Rhetoric is an important part
of today’s language in social media.
Social media is not finite: there is not a set number of pages or hours. The audience
can participate in social media by adding comments or even editing the stories
themselves. Content in social media can take the form of text, graphics, audio, or
video. Several formats can be mixed. Social media is typically available via feeds,
enabling users to subscribe via feed readers, and allowing other publishers to create
mashups.
Social media signifies a broad spectrum of topics and has several different
connotations. In the context of Internet marketing, Social Media refers to a collective
group of web properties that are driven by users. For example, blogs, discussion
boards, vlogs, video sharing sites and dating sites. Social Media Optimization (SMO)
is the process of trying to get one's content more widely distributed across multiple
Social Media networks.
Social Media has two important aspects. The first, SMO, refers to on-page tactics
through which a webmaster can improve a website for the age of social media. Such
optimization includes adding links to services such as Digg, Reddit and Del.icio.us so
that their pages can be easily 'saved and submitted' to and for these services.
Social Media Marketing, on the other hand, is an off-page characteristic of Social
Media. This includes writing content that is remarkable, unique, and newsworthy.
This content can then be marketed by popularizing it or even by creating a “viral”
video on YouTube and other video sites. Social Media is about being social so this
off-page work can include getting involved in other similar blogs, forums, and niche
communities. Search Engine Marketing or SEM involves utilization of all available
Social Networking platforms to brand a product using Search Engine Optimization or
SEO techniques of communication, to the end consumer.
StumbleUpon is a Web browser plugin that allows its users to discover and rate
Web pages, photos, and videos. Web pages are presented when the user clicks the
"Stumble!" button on the browser's toolbar. StumbleUpon chooses which new Web
page to display based on the user's ratings of previous pages, ratings by his/her
friends, and by the ratings of users with similar interests. I.e., it is a
recommendation system which uses peer and social-networking principles. There is
also one-click blogging built in as well. Users can rate, or choose not to rate, any
Web page with a thumbs up or thumbs down, and clicking the Stumble button
resembles "channel-surfing" the Web. Toolbar versions exist for Firefox, Mozilla
Application Suite and Internet Explorer, but also works with some independent
Mozilla-based browsers.
Technorati is an Internet search engine for searching blogs, competing with Google,
Yahoo and IceRocket. As of December 2007, Technorati indexes over 112 million
weblogs.[1] The name Technorati is a portmanteau, pointing to the technological
version of literati or intellectuals.
Technorati was founded by Dave Sifry and its headquarters are in San Francisco,
California, USA. Tantek Çelik was the site's Chief Technologist.
Technorati uses and contributes to open source software. Technorati has an active
software developer community, many of them from open-source culture. Sifry is a
major open-source advocate, and was a founder of LinuxCare and later of Wi-Fi
access point software developer Sputnik. Technorati includes a public developer's
wiki, where developers and contributors collaborate, as well as various open APIs.
The site won the SXSW 2006 awards for Best Technical Achievement and also Best of
Show.[2] It was also nominated for a 2006 Webby award for Best Practices, but lost
to Flickr and Google Maps.[3]
Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to
send "updates" (or "tweets"; text-based posts, up to 140 characters long) to the
Twitter website, via short message service (SMS), instant messaging, or a third-
party application such as Twitterrific or Facebook.
Updates are displayed on the user's profile page and instantly delivered to other
users who have signed up to receive them. The sender can restrict delivery to those
in his or her circle of friends (delivery to everyone is the default). Users can receive
updates via the Twitter website, instant messaging, SMS, RSS, email or through an
application. For SMS, four gateway numbers are currently available: short codes for
the United States, Canada, and India, as well as a United Kingdom number for
international use. Several third parties offer posting and receiving updates via email.