I posit that any definition that includes email, Usenet, IRC, etc. is a useless definition. May as well say the whole damn Internet is social media if the definition is that inclusive.
The SDMB completely fails #1: it’s in no way a Web 2.0 application. It’s a style of web coding from the 90s. It mostly fails #2 by virtue of text posts being the only supported content. Images, videos, music, etc. are all external. #3 is only weakly supported: although there are certainly profiles, they have almost no content to them, being little more than distinct usernames. There is no way to post content tied solely to a profile. Finally, for #4, the SDMB has no group support at all. There is a useless friend’s list, but no mechanism for forming subcommunities.
Then again, the Wikipedia article later includes forums in their list of “social media”, so they don’t exactly remain consistent either.
This Board may technically be social media, but I don’t think of it as such. To me, social media is where you use your own name and document your life in photos.
I distinguish online forums that are massy/messy from those that are less so. The BIG sites don’t smell much like the smaller artsy-fartsy and neighborhood forums I infest. I see a structural divider, too - if you can respond, it’s social, while an e-list or blog allowing no feedback other than private email IMHO isn’t social.
Twenty years ago, I would get a dozen emails a day from personal friends. Now, most days I get none, and can’t remember the last time I got two. Nearly all my FB contacts simply don’t use email. My wife uses it only for us to forward documents to each other. Sometime I FB someone to say “check your email”.
I used to exchange long chatty emails, now it’s just FB msgs saying “thx” or “K”. Even that’s not “social”. When I post a picture of my breakfast in SDMB you’ll know it crossed the line into social media…
I used to write print and broadcast media material. I had a job where I had access to that media, and wide freedom of expression. It was certainly in no sense “social media”. There was a subset of the general public that I reached. I had no control over who I was reaching within that audience. Here at SDMB, I’m doing the same thing, but there are a lot more people with access to that platform. That doesn’t change it into “social”. I’m still talking to a random assortment of total strangers. Unlike FB, where I preselect the social contacts that I reach.
I thought the case for social media was a slam dunk until I read this
The Dope definitely doesn’t have a way to facilitate a connection with your friends or new people who share your specific interests.
But I’d say that if Reddit crosses the threshold, then the Dope does too. The main purpose of Reddit is a large message board. The only thing Reddit does more socially is recommend other subs for you. And I don’t consider image posting to be more “social” than text, despite the Wikipedia definition.
Email itself doesn’t seem like social media, no more than say, the web is social media. But seems like your neighborhood listserv is an early form of social media, sure.
I don’t understand your second point. There what, several hundred people who post on this board on a regular basis. Seems like a community to me. I don’t understand why you disagree.
Hmmm. I’ll revise my answer. I suppose it is a type of social media. Since I am perhaps the last person on earth that does not do Facebook, I really can’t make a comparison.
But, here I am responding to all of you. Or for our Southern friends ‘All Y’all’.
Since I don’t ‘Facebook’ or ‘Redit’ or whatever, I don’t really know how those communities interact. Oh, I have a good idea, I get out from under my rock on warm days. But the SDMB is not the same deal. I don’t think.
I communicate with friends and family through email mostly. Text’s for quick ‘Do you need something from the store’, Or that archaic voice box thing that is called the telephone.
Although I guess it fits the dictionary definition of “social” + “media”, and it fills kind of a social function in many cases, I don’t think of SDMB as social media. To me, social media is either 1) connecting with friends and people you know, where you provide personal anecdotes and updates, and/or 2) a place for promoting yourself or an organization or cause. And generally (but not necessarily) social media is not anonymous, and the content is not moderated.
I mean, I guess technically with the meanings of the individual words, I suppose it might be social media, but as somebody who uses social media himself, it (and other message boards) strike me as different. Perhaps Dr. Strangelove citing of the definition helps explain why I don’t feel like it fits, especially with point #4. It’s not a case of “I don’t use social media so this isn’t social media.” It just feels very much apart from social media like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube.
Then again, Reddit is considered social media, so I guess this board would have to be, as well.
Now that I think about it more, I think it’s a branch of social media, but without the social networking aspect of it. Message boards are topic-based. Social networks are built by connecting to people, following their pages, and you get a feed on information based on these social channels and connections, something that forums do not do. But I guess they both are aspects of “social media.” The ones I think of normally as “social media,” though, have this social networking aspect to it, which is why a place like SDMB (and other message boards) feels a bit different to me.
Message boards are the original social media. People, congregating in virtual communities, sharing thoughts, ideas, interests, etc. All the rest are just an evolution on the theme.
I’d say no, it’s not social media, because when people talk about social media, they’re referring to Twitter, Instagram, SnapChat and of course Facebook.
I guess in this forum these responses are what the OP is looking for. The thread should have been in GQ and finished after a couple of posts that give the most widely used definitions: yes, of course it is.
To me, reading this thread feels similar to reading an IMHO thread that goes something like “Do you think vaccinations work?”.
I thought about this earlier today. If someone offers me a soda, my first thoughts are Coke, Pepsi, maybe root beer or 7 Up. If I say yes and they give me Mountain Dew Code Red, I’d be angry because that’s obviously a shitty drink… but I can’t deny that it is actually soda.
So yeah, someone says “social media” and everyone thinks Facebook and Twitter. But I contend we are the Code Red in this situation.
