Allgorhythm said:A Non Entity said:Any place where users can voice an opinion can be labeled social media.
That’s one definition & it is valid. But, under that definition, personal columns in a Victorian era newspaper or, perhaps, even caveman drawings would qualify as social media.
I suggest a narrower definition would be more useful when categorizing a platform like Facebook. That’s not to suggest that Facebook is responsible for the social media phenomenon. The term, social media, appeared in the middle 1990s about a decade before Facebook launched. Nevertheless, Facebook, with its 2 billion or so active daily users, epitomizes the construct that comes to mind when people talk about social media.
I’m with Allgorhythm on this one.
“Social Media” has a definition that, while fuzzy around the edges, effectively means Web 2.0 websites that prominently employ and rely on certain features, no the least of which is user generated content being the primary focus of the site as well as interconnected networks of “friends” (or whatever) that are the primary method of moving this information through the network:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_mediaYes, one could argue for a different definition but it’s pedantry. 9/10 out of 10 if someone says “social media” they absolutely mean the above, not some phpbb bulletin board about knitting.