Hi there!
16 years ago, when I was in college, I started (and failed) my first business called "Interbusiness Innovation". The basic idea- to get businesses networking, sharing resources, and leveraging eachother for co-promotion. My role was sort of a pre-historic version of a Network Creator.
So I went about contacting business owners in my local community telling them I was offering a "networking service". Can you guess how most of them responded?
- "So, you can cable my computers together, and get them talking together?"
- "Sorry, I already have a Local Area Network (LAN)."
It was ridiculous, but I simply could not get introducing the idea around their ingrained assumptions from how the term "Networking" was being popularized at the time!
Here we are today, and the term "Social Media" is not only popularized around social networking, but the rate of new emergent technologies like Ning produces new definitions, perspectives, and authorities on the subject all the time.
You'll have a hard time convincing me there is a definitive meaning of "Social Media" that isn't subject to variable interpretation and semantic confusion. The rules have yet to be written!
Let me encourage you to reflect on the traditional meaning of media which would seem all but obsolete today. It used to be that if you wanted your media out there, you had to pay to publish whether that was print, radio, television, or even try to get on the cutting-edge with new technologies like CD's and DVD's.
Lol! It has to sound funny in today's modern environment, but when the internet became popular, a lot of it had to do with businesses tripping over themselves to get in on the new "web" media capabilities for far less than they had ever previously imagined. Talk to business owners who have companies that have been around 20 years or more, and I bet you this is where they are coming from.
The term "media" also carries the connotation of channel- so paper, film, broadcast, etc. Maybe you had to just be there in the 80's when everyone got so excited about synthesizers, mobile (phones), and their Apple II "personal computers". That's the DOS generation of baby boomers excited by the power of 1's and 0's- who today feel very comfortable operating under the term "Digital Media".
I just suggest picking up on that when people talk about "Social Media Space". What a lot of them are fixated on is the "networking technologies", or "platforms for interaction". I think most of us must have been excited by that line of thinking at some point ;).
So why should we talk about Social Media here on Ning Creators?
Well I have seen a lot of networks that seem to think simply having the tools our platform offers in play good enough to qualify them in the conventions of social media today. Yes, if you are referring to the technology, then yes you are networking (social), and you have the digital channel (media), but that alone can quickly become as outdated as static websites in today's world.
It's time for us to start thinking more along the lines of the substance of our content, the effects of engagement, and how we as Ning Creators can be at the forefront of what is happening today.
I highly recommend taking a closer look at Glam Media because their recent acquisition of Ning seems to follow that line of thinking. However, just having a social network is not going to put you ahead of the curve for where this is all going. We're going to need to be more oriented on demonstrating more passionate engagement (social), presenting quality content (media), and taking advantage of what any individual can now accomplish by creating their own social network.
That is we Ning Creators should talk, because I think we all have the opportunity now to influence what the world is talking about when they say "social media".
Best,
Anthony
Replies
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