what is social media?

… just another way for people to connect

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Social Media is just people talking and sharing through internet websites.  That part is easy to understand.  The part that gets complicated is discovering which handful of websites, amongst the thousands out there, are the ones you can benefit from. Social media (SoMe) can be found in the many different forms.  Some social sites are made for just blogging, while others may incorporate several features like:
|blogs       |micro blogs       |profile sites       |bookmarks       |file sharing       |forums       |online communities       |review sites     |check-in sites         |video & photo sharing

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The birth of social media…

started back in the mid 1990’s with the creation of the first online, personal diary weblogs, later coined in 1999 as a “blog”.   This new online communication portal, along with the explosion of the everyday household’s exposure to the world wide web, started the infancy of social media.  (From 1996–1999, AOL grew to 10 million users.)

Blogging and chat rooms gave people all over the world the perfect stage allowing them to communicate about shared interests in real time.   These instant communication portals created the foundation of social media.  For the first time, the everyday person had a voice and a channel to reach out into the world and be heard.  This media channel is evolving everyday to create great opportunities and change in society.