The huge number of many different social media websites can at first be overwhelming. An easy way to start to understand is to break them down into different types. Obviously a lot of these sites overlap with regard to their functions. We’ve just categorised them into their different sections by the site’s main focus for the sake of simplicity.
Communication
Social Networking
Examples: Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin
Social Networking sites are websites where people can easily establish friendships and connections with each other. They can create their profiles where they can post personal information and other items that can easily be shared.
Blogs
These sites facilitate the creation of blogs. Blogs traditionally are like diaries and thus have some sort of chronological order. Users normally post information on their blogs to make it accessible to the wider public.
Collaboration
Wikis
Example: Wikipedia
On Wikis users provide information collectively. The idea is that any user in any part of the world can change and update the existing body of information.
Book Marking
Examples: Digg, StumbleUpon, reddit, delicious
On these sites users share links to websites that they like. The number of users who like a link to a website is recorded and the most popular websites become top links.
Multimedia
Video Sharing
These sites enable the sharing of video files across the internet.
Photo Sharing
Examples: Flickr, Photobucket
These sites enable the sharing of images easily across the internet.
Music Sharing
Example: MySpace
These sites enable the sharing of music across the internet. There are many copyright implications with the sharing of music files, which is why these websites normally contain the music of independent artists.
Reviews and Opinions
Reviews
These sites provide reviews of various products and services.
Opinions
Examples: Yahoo! Answers, wikiAnswers
On these sites people ask questions and users reply with their opinion on a given matter.
Customer Service
Examples: GetSatisfaction
Website where customers write their questions, thoughts and suggestions about a company.
Email
