Do You Do Social Media?

Whether you call it social media, Web 2.0 or social networking, its 2009, so if you aren't putting your toe into the world of social media, you'd better get started and soon. Let's start with some basics like a definition.

Just what is "Social Media"? If we tap the world's largest encyclopedia, Wikipedia, for a definition of social media, this is what we get:

"Social media are primarily Internet- and mobile-based tools for sharing and discussing information among human beings. The term most often refers to activities that integrate technology, telecommunications and 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 among communities, as people share their stories and experiences."

Huh? ... "depends on the varied perspectives and "building" of shared meaning among communities". Okay, enough of the consultant-speak-garblely-gook. Let's try again.

Social media are online communications in which individuals move seamlessly between reading and creating content (content could be words, images or video). They use social software that enables anyone without knowledge of coding, to post, comment on, share or mash up* content and to form communities around shared interests.

*Tomorrow I'll cover what a mashup is.

More definitions:

Robert Scoble: What is Social Media?

Bryan Eisenberg: Understanding and Aligning the Value of Social Media.

Brian Solis: What's Wrong with Social Media.

The Internet is Big ... And Going to Get Bigger

The global internet population has crested over the 1 billion mark according to ComScore.

Even as the internet population passes the one billion mark, only 41% (416 million) of adults (15+) in the Asia Pacific are online while in the US only 28% (185 million) of 15+'s are online. That leaves a lot of room for continued growth.

"Surpassing one billion global users is a significant landmark in the history of the Internet," said Magid Abraham, President and Chief Executive Officer, comScore, Inc. "It is a monument to the increasingly unified global community in which we live and reminds us that the world truly is becoming more flat. The second billion will be online before we know it, and the third billion will arrive even faster than that, until we have a truly global network of interconnected people and ideas that transcend borders and cultural boundaries."

Sites that Top the Global Internet Traffic Mountain

It should be no surprise to anyone who has even a basic understanding of the internet these days that Google is the "King of the Mountain", with over 775 million visitors. Yikes ... remember 8 years ago when Google was breaking into the search engine market? Google was named the top search engine by PC magazine in 1998. The most prophetic statement in the short PC magazine article, "There's much more to come at Google!, but even in its prototype form it's a great search engine.", truer words have not been written.

Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL hold positions 2, 3, 4 and coming in in 5th position is the Wikipedia Foundation Sites. Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia that can be edited by anyone and that aims to provide free encyclopedic information to its readers that was founded in 2000. and it can boldly hold claim to the success of user-generated content. As of Jan 25/09 Wikipedia contains 2.7 million articles.

If you think it's too late to claim your corner of the internet? Think again. The internet is only just beginning and one can only imagine that new businesses and innovations the next billion internet users will bring.