Social media allows anyone with internet access to create and share content. Popular sites include MySpace, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Some sites focus on news gathering and sharing. Social media is constantly evolving and accessible to everyone, making almost anyone a content producer.
Social media consists primarily of user-generated Internet content. Instead of waiting for professionals to bring them content, anyone with a computer and an internet connection now has the ability to create content themselves and share it with the world. Social media provides a place for content creators to express their ideas to anyone who will read them. Most are highly interactive, which is partly why they are attractive to many.
Some of the more popular social media sites include MySpace, LinkedIn® and Facebook®. All of this allows users to create a profile, post pictures, update their current moods and feelings, and add friends. Additionally, users can choose who sees their profile, whether it’s someone on the Internet or just friends and family. MySpace is typically more popular with a younger audience, while LinkedIn® is known for being a site where many professionals have profiles related to their careers. Facebook® began as a website that only allowed college students, but has grown into an online meeting space for people of all ages.
Some websites don’t necessarily allow in-depth profiles, but they do allow users to show current thoughts and some photographs. Twitter is a site that allows users to post a short bio, some pictures, and unlimited short updates. While updates can only be a maximum of 140 characters, they can be anything from links and quotes to user mood updates and thought-provoking questions. Twitter is used a lot by companies to keep their followers updated on the company, but many people and celebrities also use the site.
Not all social media revolves around displaying pictures and status updates. Some websites are geared towards gathering news, commenting and disseminating it on the Internet. On Digg, readers of published stories can vote on each story, determining which articles will stay on the front page. StumbleUpon introduces users to content they might like based on their interests, allowing them to recommend it or switch to something else. Delicious allows users to add all their favorite sites as bookmarks, organize them and share them with other users.
These are just some of the popular social media sites. New sites are created often, while some that may be currently popular will eventually disappear from the public eye or perhaps morph into something else. One of the key aspects of social media networks is that they are accessible to everyone, allowing almost anyone to become a content producer instead of just a reader. This means that social media can be described as ever-changing.
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