As social media evolves, it takes on new meanings and incorporates more software applications.

New words in the field of social media are cropping up every day, take a look at “Attention Age” and “Social Commerce”.

Our Attention is shifting. Do you find that interesting? We live in a world of attention deficit folks. Maybe they are not really deficit of attention. Maybe they  just have a different definition of what they find important and what gains their attention.

So first we had the Industrial Age, then it was the information age and now the attention age. I am not sure how many actually buy into the attention age, but it is fun to think about below is a diagram which helps to map it out.

According to Wikipedia Social media is media designed to be disseminated through social interaction, created using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques. Social media supports the human need for social interaction, using Internet- and web-based technologies to transform broadcast media monologues (one to many) into social media dialogues (many to many).

It supports the democratization of knowledge and information, transforming people from content consumers into content producers.

Businesses also refer to social media as user-generated content (UGC) or consumer-generated media (CGM). Social media utilization is believed to be a driving factor in the idea that the current period in time will be defined as the Attention Age.

Social media can be said to have three components;

1. Concept (art, information, or meme).
2. Media (physical, electronic, or verbal).
3. Social interface (intimate direct, community engagement, social viral, electronic broadcast or syndication, or other physical media such as print).

Distinction from industrial media

Social media are distinct from industrial media, such as newspapers, television, and film. While social media are relatively inexpensive and accessible tools that enable anyone (even private individuals) to publish or access information, industrial media generally require significant resources to publish information. Examples of industrial media issues include a printing press or a government-granted spectrum license.

“Industrial media” are commonly referred to as “traditional”, “broadcast” or “mass” media..

One characteristic shared by both social media and industrial media is the capability to reach small or large audiences; for example, either a blog post or a television show may reach zero people or millions of people.

The properties that help describe the differences between social media and industrial media depend on the study. Some of these properties are:

1. Reach – both industrial and social media technologies provide scale and enable anyone to reach a global audience.
2. Accessibility – the means of production for industrial media are typically owned privately or by government; social media tools are generally available to anyone at little or no cost.
3. Usability – industrial media production typically requires specialized skills and training. Most social media do not, or in some cases reinvent skills, so anyone can operate the means of production.
4. Recency – the time lag between communications produced by industrial media can be long (days, weeks, or even months) compared to social media (which can be capable of virtually instantaneous responses; only the participants determine any delay in response). As industrial media are currently adopting social media tools, this feature may well not be distinctive anymore in some time.
5. Permanence – industrial media, once created, cannot be altered (once a magazine article is printed and distributed changes cannot be made to that same article) whereas social media can be altered almost instantaneously by comments or editing.

Information outputs and human interaction

Primarily, social media depend on interactions between people as the discussion and integration of words to build shared-meaning, using technology as a conduit.

Social media has been touted as presenting a fresh direction for marketing by allowing companies to talk with consumers, as opposed to talking at them.

Social media is not finite: there is not a set number of pages or hours. The audience can participate in social media by adding comments, instant messaging or even editing the stories themselves.

Social media can take many different forms, including Internet forums, weblogs, social blogs, wikis, podcasts, pictures, video, rating and bookmarking. Technologies include: blogs, picture-sharing, vlogs, wall-postings, email, instant messaging, music-sharing, crowdsourcing, and voice over IP, to name a few.

Examples of social media software applications include:

Communication

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• Blogs: Blogger, LiveJournal, Open Diary, TypePad, WordPress, Vox, ExpressionEngine, Xanga

• Micro-blogging / Presence applications: Twitter, Plurk, Tumblr, Jaiku, fmylife

• Social networking: Bebo, BigTent, Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Orkut, Skyrock, Hi5, Ning, Elgg
• Social network aggregation: NutshellMail, FriendFeed

• Events: Upcoming, Eventful  Meetup.com

Collaboration

• Wikis: Wikipedia, PBwiki, wetpaint

• Social bookmarking (or social tagging)^[5]: Delicious, StumbleUpon, Google Reader, CiteULike
• Social news: Digg, Mixx, Reddit, NowPublic
• Opinion sites: epinions, Yelp

Multimedia

• Photo sharing: Flickr, Zooomr, Photobucket, SmugMug, Picasa
• Video sharing: YouTube, Vimeo, sevenload
• Livecasting: Ustream.tv, Justin.tv, Stickam, Skype
• Audio and Music Sharing: imeem, The Hype ,  Machine, Last.fm, ccMixter

Reviews and Opinions

• Product Reviews: epinions.com, MouthShut.com
• Business Reviews: yelp.com
• Community Q&A: Yahoo! Answers, WikiAnswers, Askville, Google Answers

Entertainment

• Media & Entertainment Platforms: Cisco Eos
• Virtual worlds: Second Life, The Sims Online, Forterra
• Game sharing: Miniclip, Kongregate

Other

• Information aggregators: Netvibes, Twine (website)

*information supplied by wikipedia