Social Media - A Massive Communication Tool

Ritesh Warke

Media is a tool for communication. As the name implies, social media is also a tool which is used for communication. Social media turns ordinary communication into an interesting interactive dialogue with the help of the latest web and cellular (mobile) technologies. It allows the exchange of user generated content using various internet based applications. Social media act as a tool which is merely used for social interaction rather than social communication. With the emerge of social media into the communication platform it has made substantial changes not only to the communication between individuals but also various communities as well as many other organizations.

Social media is two way street where you can access many information and also respond to those facts. Facebook, Orkut, Google+ etc are examples of social networking sites. Twitter is an example for blogs, Wikipedia is an example for collaborative projects, YouTube is an example for content community, World of Warcraft is an example of virtual game world, whereas Second Life is a virtual social world. Most of these social communication media networking services can be integrated into a single platform via a technology known by the name social network aggregation.

Facebook:

Facebook was launched in February 2004. This popular social networking site was founded by Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook has over 750 million users. In Facebook a user must set up a personal profile, adding other friends as their Facebook friends, sending messages, passing automatic notifications when they update their Facebook profile, make comments on their friends’ profile. Users can join interesting groups which are formed within the Facebook site.

Twitter:

Twitter facilitates sending and reading messages or posts up to 140 characters which are commonly known by the name ‘tweets’. It was created in March of 2006 by Jack Dorsey and was launched in the July of the same year. It is a popular site with over 220 million users. Twitter handles over 200 million tweets in a single day which are known as SMS of internet.

Orkut:

Orkut is another social networking site operated by the Google corporation. It was popular once before the launch of Facebook. This site was made to meet your old friends as well as to maintain our existing friendships. This site was named after its creator itself- OrkutBuyukkokten. It’s less popular in US, but more popular in Latin American countries and also in India. Now Google plans to make Brazil the headquarters of Orkut.



The latest entry to the social networking realm is Google+, which is also another invention from Google Inc. In Google+ each user can maintain their friends into various circles like relationships, family, friends etc.