History of Social Media - Term Paper Example

?Take Home Final Exam PART A HISTORY OF SOCIAL MEDIA Social media in the modern society has become an integral part that assists in effective communication. Social media entails within it a larger customer base as compared to any other form of media. The application and usage of social media enable the users to avail any site of their interest. In the historical period pertaining to the social media, there were numerous moments that had provided advanced assistance worldwide. However, few of the moments have made a mark in relation to its usage and application worldwide (Ritholtz Barry, “History of Social Media”). The advent of ‘Email’ as a form of social media was made in the year 1966. This form of social media has been of great help to the society. In keeping with the advantage, apart from normal sending and receiving of messages through mail, one can also send greeting cards among others. Another form of social media that has facilitated to ease the lifestyle of the masses worldwide is ‘LinkedIn’. This form of social media has been of great assistance to the working people or for businesses. By executing this social media within the organizations, it becomes convenient to get connected with professionals and executives. YouTube became functional in the year 2005. This was considered to be the first major website for hosting along with sharing of the videos worldwide. This has helped the users’ in viewing the videos of their interest. In the year 2006, social media emerged with a new innovation for common users i.e. ‘Facebook’. With this social media, communication amidst the society has become more effective. This assists the society to maintain connection with their closed ones worldwide. ‘Google Buzz’ is the form of social media that acts as a messaging tool. By applying this form of social media, the users can send messages, photos and links among others (Ritholtz Barry, “History of Social Media”). 2. PROPERTIES OF SOCIAL MEDIA In accordance with the properties of social media, they are quite different from that of historical or industrial media. The diversified properties of the social media comprise quality, frequency, reach, accessibility, usability, immediacy and permanence among others. In the era of modernization, people are getting more interested towards the field of networking. Social media ensures the connection of individuals with friends, along with facilitating to share information and contents among others which contribute to the popularity of social media. In the modern day scenario, communication within the organizations has greatly changed. The traditional form of media is quite different as compared to the new form. Traditional social media comprises newspapers, films and magazines among others. The new form of social media entails inherent properties that have made it more successful rather than the traditional form. With regard to the dimension of accessibility, social media is very easily available at minimum or no cost at all. In order to use social media, there is no requirement of specialized knowledge or skills. In keeping with speed as a property of social media, it is readily available everywhere. Furthermore, it is being used by everyone within the community. Moreover, an individual can communicate with a larger base of audiences without any interruption. New social media is being highly applied by the marketing departments in organizations in order to reach the larger client base at a shorter tenure. Interactivity as another property of social media basically fosters two or multiple way communication. In accordance with longevity as a property of social media, it is generally volatile by nature. Reach of social media is unlimited in terms of contents. Application of social media in modern day context enables the users to search unlimited contents of their interest. Comparatively, in case of traditional media, it is not that volatile, speedy and accessible as the new form of media i.e. social media (Taprial and Kanwar 6-39; Blazevic, Hammedi, Garnefeld, Rust, Keiningham, Andreassen, Donthu and Carl 294-311). 3. TYPES OF SOCIAL MEDIA The differentiated types of social media are usually based on the media research. There are six forms of social media such as collaborative projects, blogs and microblogs, content communities, social networking sites, virtual game world and virtual social world. Collaborative Projects. In accordance with collaborative projects, it usually permits content creation on the basis of joint effort being implied by numerous end users. The application of the collaborative projects creates a separation between the social bookmarking sites and the wikis. This enables in the collection of information on a group basis (Kaplan and Haenlein 63-66). Blogs and Microblogs. Blogs usually represent an earliest form pertaining to social media that displays the date-stamped entries. In this regard, it can be stated that these entries are made in the reverse form of chronological order. Microblogs are the kind of media dimension that greatly differ from the traditional blog form (Kaplan and Haenlein 63-66). Social Media Ecosystem (Cavazza, 2012) Content Communities. This particular form of the social media permits the users to share within them the media contents. Moreover, the content communities provide a wide accessibility to the diversified photos, presentations and videos among others. Social Networking Sites. The extensive usage of social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and MySpace among others enables the users to be connected with the external world that fosters friendship and affiliation with multiple users at a time. Through the medium of social networking site, the users create their personal information to share with their closed ones along with the external circle (Kaplan and Haenlein 63-66). Virtual Game World. This particular type of social media represents the subgroup related to the virtual world. This form of social media requires the users to follow strict rules as there are multiplayers being involved in the role-playing game (Kaplan and Haenlein 63-66). Virtual Social World. In keeping with virtual social world, it is represented as the second subgroup related to the virtual world. In this type of social media, the users are free to choose their behavior accordingly (Kaplan and Haenlein 63-66). 4. FUNCTIONS OF SOCIAL MEDIA Social media has provided numerous benefits to the entire society at large. The functions of the social media have been briefly described hereunder. The honeycomb framework of the social media represents the functionalities that it provides to its users. Identity as the functional block of the social media depicts the revelation of personal information of the users to a certain extent. The identity as the function mainly comprises name, sex, profession, location and gender among others. Conversation as the next functional framework primarily represents the extension pertaining to which the conversation must be made by the users. Communication is regarded as the base of social media, where multiple users interact with each other and there is a limitation to conversation which is usually maintained for the security reasons. In correspondence with the function of social media, sharing represents the limitation of the user pertaining to exchange of contents. Social media as a tool for interaction amidst multiple users sharing of pictures and contents is addressed to avoid any security issues. Presence as a social media function also represents the limit of the users in relation to the availability (Kietzmann, Hermkens, McCarthy and Silvestre 243-248). Relationship as one of the main functions of social media refers to the extent to which a user might relate with others pertaining to the medium. The extent of the users’ knowledge regarding the status and professional information of the others reflect the relationship function of social medium. Group as a key function of social media represents the extent to which the users are enabled to establish group within the social network (Kaplan and Haenlein 62-65). 5. BENEFITS OF SOCIAL MEDIA In accordance with the facet of social media, it entails numerous benefits. It acts as one of the best mediums for the personal use. Individuals use the social media to remain attached with their closed ones and friends. Moreover, social media assists them in having conversation with multiple users at a time. It has been ascertained that social media is readily available in various forms. The application of the social media assists the masses in exploring their creativity. Furthermore, with the advent of social media, it has contributed towards the acceleration of the social interaction amidst the community. Moreover, with the application of social media the consumers’ have gained more power in their hand pertaining to the purchase of products. Concerning the business aspect, social media has enabled the modern day firms to communicate with extensive set of customers at shortest tenure. Furthermore, social media has enabled the companies to build up large client base. Thus, it can be affirmed that social media occupies a vital position in everyone’s life that has given the modern community a new height (Taprial and Kanwar 39-45). PART B ANALYZING SOCIAL MEDIA NETWORKS WITH NODEXL In relation to the article “analyzing social media networks with Nodexl”, it is recognized that the article reflects the usage of differentiated technologies that has greatly enabled the modern day communities to endure social interaction. The modern social technologies have incorporated advanced designs and procedures to ensure effective interaction amidst the community. The article also reflects the continuous improvement pertaining to social media. Furthermore, the article also engraves the thoughts pertaining to the design of the framework related to social media. It essentially replicates the pace, size, genre, control and retention among others that frame necessary parts for designing the social media. The execution and design of the social media has been explained by providing various examples pertaining to it. The two interesting points within the article include size of the producer and the consumer population and the pace of interaction. In accordance with the size of the producers and consumer population, it can be ascertained that depicting the difference between the producers along with consumers’ content proves beneficial for comparing the social media mechanisms. It has been further observed that social media greatly varies in terms of the intended number of consumers’ along with the producers. Pace of interaction also frames an important dimension to the social media mechanism. Pace of interaction entails two elements i.e. asynchronous and synchronous. In keeping with asynchronous dimension, it reflects the pattern of the interaction that mainly spreads over hours, weeks and days. Whereas, synchronous pattern of interaction reflects the instant messages such as chat and video chatting. These two important aspects provide an insight about social media as an important mechanism (Hansen, Shneiderman and Smith 11-17). SOCIAL MEDIA, TRADITIONAL MEDIA, AND MUSIC SALES This article mainly reflects the relationship between the new media, old form and sales pertaining to the context of music industry. It relates the extent of the importance that social media has created amidst the community. This particular article mainly reflects the blog buzz, music sales and radio play. The aforementioned music contents have been immensely analyzed in the context of album along with song contents. Panel Vector Auto-Regression (PVAR) has been introduced and explained as the methodology for analyzing the music data. In accordance with the radio play, it has facilitated in the future sale of songs along with albums. Furthermore, it is observed that block buzz mainly relates with the sales of album rather than normal songs. In keeping with the views represented in the article the negative relationship that exists between song buzz and sales is essentially much stronger for the niche music as compared to that of least popular songs amidst the albums. In this scenario, importance of social media does not limit to individual benefits, it is being used by business as well as music companies for effective sales. The insights that are generated from the analysis are applicable to other information goods, where sampling and sales are both viable mechanisms for consumption. The two interesting aspects of this particular article include the usage of advanced mechanism PVAR and the relationship between social media and music world that has given the music content a new leap (Dewan and Ramaprasad 1-12). A TREND STUDY OF SOCIAL MEDIA AND PROTEST BEHAVIOR: FACEBOOK, TWITTER AND YOUTH MOBILIZATION IN CHILE (2009-2012) This article mainly examines the changes that occur between the associations of social media and the accelerated unrest within the younger population. In accordance with the accelerated interference of the social media amidst the life of the children, it has created awareness within the society. It has been ascertained that the younger generation is engaging in protest behavior in modern scenario that has been resulted from the usage of social media. It has been viewed that in the year 2012, around 87 percent of the younger population was using Facebook which demonstrates the problem of protest behavior. The two interesting aspects of this article include advanced usage of the new technology and the protest behavior. With regard to the advent of social media as an advanced technology, it has provided the community ease in enduring effective communication. However, with every new technology certain pros and cons remain associated. Correspondingly, the advent of social media has encouraged the young generation to indulge in protest behavior (Valenzuela, Arriagada and Scherman 1-7). Works Cited Blazevic, Vera, Wafa Hammedi, Ina Garnefeld, Roland T. Rust, Timothy Keiningham, Tor W. Andreassen, Naveen Donthu and Walter Carl. “Beyond Traditional Word-Of-Mouth an Expanded Model of Customer-Driven Influence.” Journal of Service Management 24.3 (2013). Print. Cavazza, Fred. An Overview of the Social Media Ecosystem. 2012. Web. 12 Dec. 2013. Dewan, Sanjeev, and Jui Ramaprasad. “Social Media, Traditional Media, and Music Sales.” Management Information Systems Quarterly (2013). Print. Hansen Derek L, Ben Shneiderman and Marc A. Smith. “Analyzing Social Media Networks with Nodexl.” Elsevier Incorporation (2011). Print. Kaplan Andreas M., and Michael Haenlein. “Users of the world, unite! The Challenges and Opportunities of Social Media.” Kelley School of Business (2009). Kietzmann Jan H., Kristopher Hermkens, Ian P. McCarthy and Bruno S. Silvestre. “Social Media? Get Serious! Understanding the Functional Building Blocks of Social Media.” Kelley School of Business (2011). Print. “History of Social Media.” Ritholtz Barry. 2010. Web. 11 Dec. 2013. Taprial Varinder, and Priya Kanwar. “Understanding Social Media.” Ventus Publishing (2012). Print. Valenzuela, Sebastian, Arturo Arriagada, and Andres Scherman. “A trend study of social media and protest behavior: Facebook, Twitter and youth mobilization in Chile (2009-2012).” International Journal of Communication (2013). Print. Read More