Social media is a catch-all term for a variety of internet applications that allow users to create content and interact with each other. This interaction can take many forms, but some common types include:
- Sharing links to interesting content produced by third parties
- Public updates to a profile, including information on current activities and even location data
- Sharing photos, videos and posts
- Commenting on the photos, posts, updates, videos and links shared by others
Social media is perceived as a Web 2.0 development, which is to say that it is founded on the concept of a user-driven, interactive web. Blogs, message boards and chat rooms provide an experience that could be described as social media, but the term is more strongly identified with sites like Twitter, Facebook, Digg, LinkedIn, and so on. Like many buzzwords, the meaning of social media is a moving target that gets shifted around according to what the person using it wants it to mean.