TOOLS for Social Media

Getting social on the web does not just mean having a Facebook or Linkedin page – it is far beyond that! Getting social on the web is really the defining difference between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0. In the first generation of the web, it was all about providing information to your readers – the web was a one-way street. Web 2.0 is all about the user and giving the user a voice – thus making it a two-way street.

Defining the different ways to be social

There are different types of social on the web and each category has a different focus (with some overlap in functionality):

• Social Networking is probably the most widely known Web 2.0 term. From Orkut, MySpace to Facebook, LinkedIn, and other similar sites, the focus of social networking is to connect you with others – your friends, people with similar interests, potential employers, and then give you the opportunity to find more connections as your profile grows.
• Social Bookmarking (like del.icio.us, Furl, Ma.gnolia) sites allow you to organize your favorite sites, tag them for keywords, and keep them all in one place. Very handy. However, what makes these sites social, is the ability for you to share them with others.
• Social Recommendation sites combine the best of social networking and bookmarking to create user generated recommendation sites. Sites like Digg, Netscape and StumbleUpon encourage users to submit items they like and then give others the opportunity to vote on them. There are also a large crop of smaller niche sites like BizzBites, Sk*rt, Babblz, BUMPzee and such that are evolving to cater to the specific needs of certain audiences.
• Social Content sites include Flickr, YouTube, and wikis to name a few. These are sites where users create and manage the content from photos to videos, information on a topic, and everything in between.
• Other sites such as MyBlogLog, Technorati, and Blog Catalog give users the ability to network, bookmark and recommend all under one handy roof.