Cometh Now Social Media

For a glimpse at the good ol' days before social media, click here and revel at some of the monstrosities of past social tech. Gone are the days when one merely picks up the telephone to call a friend. No! Now it cannot be that simple.

Or is it?

Given the miracles that modern technology has provided for us, on the web and on television we now see mention everywhere of the latest in technology fashion: Social Media.

Social Media Eclipses Traditional Communication

More recently we've had people mixing it up on Skype. Kids cross the street while text messaging, completely oblivious to cars zooming past them. Now there's MySpace, FaceBook and Twitter.

So, what is all this mumbo-jumbo? As the gods of Wikipedia would have it, social media is "is information content created by people using highly accessible and scalable publishing technologies."

Mr. Wiki further states: "Social media can take many different forms, including Internet forums, weblogs, social blogs, wikis, podcasts, pictures and video. Technologies include: blogs, picture-sharing, vlogs, wall-postings, email, instant messaging, music-sharing, crowdsourcing, and voice over IP, to name a few."

What's absolutely so wonderful is this technology allows us to communicate with each other now through most any means. What's absolutely so maddening about all this technology allows us to communicate with each other through most any means. How's that for a double-edged sword on your plate? The challenge now is to wade through this wonderfully distracting quagmire of information.

And what will become this social media? The answer is: hurry up and wait. After an unspoken battle of scurrying and scrounging ensues, waxes, and slowly wanes away with so much settling of dust, only time will tell what its ultimate use will be. Meanwhile...

Some Social Media I Use

So how about some examples:

Blogs - Blogs ("web logs") and blogging are the modern day equivalent of what grandma and grandpa may have done when they picked up a fountain pen and rubbed the nib end of it on some creamy-smooth paper to create this thing called cursive handwriting. This rubbing of paper is now known as a "journal entry". These entries on electronic blogs may be of any length, and may contain all form of visual media goodies that folks sometimes call "eye candy", while others like YouTube may serve as blogs served through media. While some of these blogs can get pretty busy looking, others seem to tug our attention gently with an overall minimalistic look and feel (my preference). To have a look at my unimpressive bloggy, click here.

Twitter - Twitter is a blogette of sorts. It's small and perky - a teeny-bopper (say Hanna Montana) version of a real blog. It seems to address the needs of folks with little time to write , where a more conventional blog is better suited for larger chunks of content. Or perhaps Twitter was developed to address the needs of folks with recognizably short attention spans! While Twitter may seem "intuitive" or "user-friendly" to some folks, it took a while before its value became apparent to me as a replicator of my articles' content which you may conveniently read now on the web. (Hey! While we're at it, try following me on Twitter: twitter.com/John_Melendez )

Bookmarking - Bookmarking is an activity whereby the reader can make certain web pages stand out to share them with friends or the public in general. It seems there is an infinite number of bookmarking service providers on the Internet, and they all tout their own angle as to why they are the best one. Click here to see a long list of who these guys are.

Associated Content (AC) - Last but not least, let us remember the folks who kindly brought this webpage to you. While sort of acting as a blog, these folks are continuously molding their image (quite appropriately) to the changing times as the various social media arise. As a writer, what I feel is so great about AC is its established presence on the web, breadth of membership and content, and easily readable format. For those people wishing to express themselves primarily in writing - or sometimes by using pictures and video - Associated Content is the way to go. For those wishing to avoid loads of administrative hassle commonly associated with tending one's own fully featured blog, AC great, too. To become a writer with an instant web presence on AC, click here to e-mail me, and I can send you an invitation for a free membership.

More On The Way...

With each passing moment, there seem to be new services with a fresh lime twist. Vook proposes a hybrid mix of book publishing along with almost everything for aspiring writers. All of them are pushing and scrounging for the top of the media mountain - and among these there is sure to be one that will tickle your fancy.

So happily distracted, what else is there?

Have fun in the meantime!