Social Media Tools
Derek Hansen
BlogsThreadedConversation
WikisSocial Networks
Sharing tools
Mixing It Up
Background
Considerations
A Look Ahead
Historical Note
Reuse is Most Common Use
Social Media as Infrastructure
Threaded Conversation
Email Lists Discussion Forums Usenet
Key Features Goal: Support communities of practice by enabling group
conversations that can be easily overheard Basic unit: short, permanent text message authored by a
single person Organized by: threads
Blogs
Individual blog Organization blog Group blog (i.e., aggregated blog) Microblog (i.e., twitter)
Key Features Goal: Support posting of time-sensitive content and
solicit reactions by readers Basic unit: (1) permanent post with some basic
formatting, (2) brief comments by readers Organized by: time (show most recent posts first)
Wikis
Wikipedia (a particularly popular wiki) Community wiki repositories
Key Features Goal: Support the creation of community-authored
content that can be constantly edited by many people Basic unit: An article (or single web page) that supports
rich formatting of content Organized by: articles (hyperlinks and categories) Note: Stores every edit and prior version of an article
Social Networking Sites
Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn Specialized communities - e.g.,
tudiabetesKey Features Goal: Help people find, maintain, and benefit from their
social relationships Basic unit: Profile page and “friends” Organized by: people & groups Note: Typically include many ways of communicating
with others
Social Sharing Tools
Flickr (images) Del.icio.us, Digg (websites) YouTube (videos) CiteUlike, Connotea (journal articles)
Key Features Goal: Share items or information of interest Basic unit: Items or links to items Organized by: tags and votes
Mixing it up
RSS Feeds Widgets, Gadgets, and Apps APIs and Interoperability Mashups
Rss Feed
Content from RSS feed
YouTube video
Custom Search
Considerations
Understand your audience & theirneeds
Social challenges (e.g., motivatingpeople) trump technical challenges
Build vs modify vs off-the-shelf? Host yourself or use third party hosting
solution?
A look ahead
Continued rapid pace of innovation More than just conversations (e.g., health
information) Use of smart mobile devices for new forms of
social interaction More “off the shelf” tools
Credits
http://www.flickr.com/photos/oneeighteen/1690769913/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/zhurnaly/87396143/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cupcakequeen/2447557364/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/chasing_imperfection/269997777/
http://scobleizer.com/2007/11/02/social-media-starfish/