Are you familiar with Facebook? I guess no person in this generation could say that he is totally unfamiliar with the most famous social network website in the net. How about Twitter? You are most likely familiar with MySpace, Plurk, Friendster, Digg, Blogspot, and LinkedIn as well. All these social network sites are ringing through the ears of every individual wrapped up because of one cause—the Social Media.
Derived from Wikipedia’s definition, social media is media designed to be disseminated through social interaction, created using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques. This media, unlike the customary industrial media, uses the internet and web-based technologies to transform broadcast media monologues (one to many) into social media dialogues (many to many). Now what differences does it make? Well, it actually differs a lot! With social media’s advantages, news and information can rapidly extend not just through televisions, radios and newspapers alone, but even through internet forums, weblogs, social blogs, miroblogging, picture sharing, and social bookmarking.
The advancement of media from a one-to-many concept of delivering information has rapidly evolved, like what Wiki defined, into many-to many perceptions. When the Web 1.0 developed into 2.0 last 2004, internet developed into a “high-technology” medium in spreading out information, and not just the usual source of information. People enjoy social media’s benefits by interacting with what is written in the site. Facebook, in particular, allows users to post what they want to say, upload videos and photos that other users can freely respond or react to it, and even create enjoyable and addictive applications that many users are avidly taking pleasure in. Likewise, social sites like Facebook and Twitter create a new set of social media relationship. These sites fashion a global community that an ordinary person can be comfortable to mingle with. Together with this, users can communicate and socialize to other people regardless of age and location. Yet, social media’s advantages are not just for pleasure and entertainment alone. The ripples of advantages went far beyond even to deliver current events instantly.
Do you know that social media breaks the tradition of informing news by a professional journalist alone? With social media, an ordinary person like you and me can deliver current events in a high-speed manner. In this approach, the whole world is then connected and informed instantly. One classic example is the ever-known event about the World Trade Center. Videos and stories from common people mark a great contribution in the field of broadcasting. Also the Tsunami in Indonesia was widely broad casted through the videos ordinary people contributed. If it’s not because of them, we couldn’t have been updated on the latest news that occurred during these times.
All these are happened because of Social Media’s innumerable advantages. See how marvelous it makes such a difference.
