Social Media

Like most people, I belong to a social media landscape, I text, blog, twitter, search youtube, use wikipedia, shop online, etc but I haven't really delved into it as deeply as I could have.  Lately, however, I have been reflecting on it more and more.  My deepening interest might be because it's becoming more pervasive as technology becomes more and more prevalent.  Or it might be because I started teaching a senior level computer class this semester and I've been guiding them through the world of social media.  Either way, I've found myself swimming (almost drowning sometimes) in social media.

What is social media?  Well, here's ...
a video that explains it much better than I ever could.  Plus the music is really good.

 

I just thought I'd take this time to briefly describe some of the tools that I've been toying with lately and hopefully get some feedback from you, my loyal reader.

Twitter - The biggest and most well-known microblogging site, Twitter is a social networking service that allows you connect with others and share updates, ideas, thoughts through short, 140 word messages known as 'tweets'.  I was skeptical at first--I thought it was trivial and shallow.  I mean, do I really care what my co-workers had for breakfast?

And for the most part, tweets are mundane.  However, you will just as often discover useful links to websites, tools, articles, etc. that you would never have been able to find using traditional means.  For example, I sent out a tweet asking if anyone had any ideas for a social media project for my computer class and within a few minutes, I was directed to an amazing site that had over a hundred ideas for a project.  Of course, this aspect can only become more and more powerful as my network gets bigger.

In any case, if you are already using Facebook, then you would still appreciate the frequent updates on the lives of people you know and care about.  It can be interesting and you actually learn things about people that you never would have otherwise.

Delicious - Delicious is a social bookmarking site used to store, share, and discover websites.  Basically, it's a means by which you can store your web bookmarks and access them from any computer that has a connection to the Internet.

To me, this was revolutionary.  I was always frustrated with the fact that I had hundreds of bookmarks but they were saved on just as many computers (home, laptop, school, militia, my mom's, etc.).  If I had bookmarked a really cool site while visiting my mom, for example, the only place I could find that bookmark would be on her computer. With delicious, however, I can simply sign in and add it to my delicious account.  Now, it doesn't matter where I am, I can sign in to delicious and access all of my bookmarks.  Plus, with tagging, I can organize them by topic and interest.  AND, because it's a SOCIAL bookmarking service, you can build a network by following other people's bookmarks.  This is useful because if you follow people with similar interests, you can share and discover bookmarks of interest to you that you may not have discovered otherwise.

StumbleUpon - StumbleUpon is similar to Delicious in that it is a service that allows you to store and share bookmarks.  However, the primary purpose of StumbleUpon is discovery.  That is, using the Stumble button, you are taken to a seemingly random website on the web.  It is not so random, however, because StumbleUpon users rate websites and so you can expect quality websites.  You have the option of 'liking' or 'not liking' the websites you stumbleupon and this information is tracked so that over time, StumbleUpon will focus on websites that it determines you might be interested in. You can filter by topic and interest as well.  For this reason, Stumbling is not just a fun way to pass the time--it can be a great way to discover, store, and share quality web content.

Anyways, these are just a couple of social media tools that I have been using in the last few months.  Are you using them?  Are you thinking of trying them?  If so, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

http://twitter.com/xmisterparkx
http://delicious.com/xmisterparkx
http://www.stumbleupon.com/stumbler/xmisterparkx/