20/04/2008

The archive contains older posts which may no longer reflect my current views.

Is the term 'Social Media' dead?

Social media, open communication, user generated content - there's no denying that the way we use the web has been changing but is too much emphasis being placed on the label for change?

The joy of the internet is its ability to allow us to connect with each other irrespective of distance and the recent wave of services was dubbed "social" due to the way it lets us directly interact much like a "real world" community.

Some people, however, are questioning the validity or relevance of the term social media. Does it accurately reflect the services we use or is it just an over-used, meaningless buzzword that has no place in our terminology? Some like to refer to it as "new media", others like Chris Hambly for example prefer the term "open communication".

Today's question, therefore is: what name do you prefer?

What term do you think most accurately reflects the services we are using? Please choose from the options in the survey below or feel free to add your own suggestions. If you want to explain your choices then comments can be added directly to the survey or on the post itself.

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