Wikipedia defines social media as:

The online technologies and practices that people use to share opinions, insights, experiences, and perspectives with each other.

A few prominent examples of social media applications are Wikipedia (reference), MySpace (social networking), YouTube (video sharing), Second Life (virtual reality), Digg (news sharing), and Flickr (photo sharing). These sites typically use technologies such as blogs, message boards, podcasts, wikis, and vlogs to allow users to interact.

This is one of the more explosive and interesting components of the Web today. From the traditional information distribution mechanisms you can draw almost a direct line to the Citizens Journalism equivalent.

Print/Newspapers - Blogging

Radio - Podcasting

TV - Vlogs

But instead of air waves or news stands, the distribution methodology for this media is RSS. The collaboration no longer needs to happen in a board room or in a cubicle farm - it can happen anywhere you can get an Internet connection. As a result, the once exclusive club of journalists writing for a magazine etc. is now open and available to everyone. Like all things that are open, it can be a good thing and a bad thing.

The distinguishing factor we are developing is an online reputation. You are responsible for your reputation and voice and we are moving into a time when the bloggeratzi are separated from the serious bloggers/podcasters/vlogers etc. Where a trusted source of information is just that and the noise generated by the masses will either meet our social standards for quality or will be relegated to the equivalent of the grocery store check out line magazine rack. You will have your Edward R. Murrow quality media and your National Enquirer quality of the social media spaces. Make no mistake, the traditional media will be involved as well, adopting the new technology just like everyone else.

The collaborative nature of this medium is creating some amazing content and what are often referred to as a mash ups. This mixing of media from multiple sources and authors is generating some really amazing evolutions of archival media as well as new media created from producers all over the world. This 21st century cut-up technique would make Burroughs and the entire Beat Generation proud. Some of the more common mash ups involve Google Maps where multiple data sources are combined to create a new and interesting set of information.

[tags]social media, web2.0, audio, video, wiki, blog, social networking[/tags]