Remember “MySpace” ? It was one of the social media pioneers. People wonder if it is still around. Indeed it is! “Myspace is a social networking service based in the United States. Launched on August 1, 2003, the site was the first social network to reach a global audience and had a significant influence on technology, pop culture and music.” (Wikipedia). It faded in the face of Facebook’s dominance. You can find it on https://myspace.com
Well, a lot has happened in the last 20 years – Here are a few of the social media platforms in use today (Note how many are owned by Meta….)
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/ The Golden Oldie platform which enables you to share stuff with “Friends”. Additional features are Pages, Groups, Events, Messaging. It was founded in 2004, and is owned by Meta Platforms. (Mark Zuckerberg) Nowadays it is used mainly by the middle-aged and old folk!
Twitter (X) – https://twitter.com/ rebranded as X since July 2023, is an online social media and social networking service operated by the American company X Corp., (Elon Musk) the successor of Twitter, Inc. On Twitter, registered users can post (or tweet) text, images and videos. Users can post, like, repost, quote repost or comment on posts; and direct message other registered users.
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/ a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters, be organized by hashtags, and be associated with a location — via geographical tagging. Posts can be shared publicly or with preapproved followers. Users can browse other users’ content by tags and locations, view trending content, like photos, and follow other users to add their content to a personal feed. The interface is geared towards mobile devices
TikTok – https://www.tiktok.com/ whose mainland Chinese counterpart is Douyin, is a short-form video hosting service owned by ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which can range in duration from 3 seconds to 10 minutes. Geared for mobile devices.
SnapChat – https://www.snapchat.com An American multimedia instant messaging app and service developed by Snap Inc., originally Snapchat Inc. One of the principal features of Snapchat is that pictures and messages are usually only available for a short time before they become inaccessible to their recipients. Geared for mobile devices
WhatsApp: https://www.whatsapp.com/ a freeware, cross-platform, centralized instant messaging and voice-over-IP service owned by United States tech conglomerate Meta Platforms. It allows users to send text, voice messages and video messages, make voice and video calls, and share images, documents, user locations, and other content. Remember, a message in a group can be shared across many other groups and go viral.
Reddit – https://www.reddit.com/ A website which caters for group interests – Anyone can look, members can comment and participate. It is an American social news aggregation, content rating, and discussion website. Registered users submit content to the site such as links, text posts, images, and videos, which are then voted up or down by other members. Moderated by volunteers and bots.
Amazon – https://www.amazon.com Apart from being an on-line shop, it’s a social media site. Account holders can give star ratings and reviews for goods and services even movies and music. It is owned (of course) by Amazon.
Specialist social media sites
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/ Social networking for job hunters. LinkedIn is a business and employment-focused social media platform that works through websites and mobile apps. It was launched on May 5, 2003. Since December 2016, it has been a wholly-owned subsidiary of Microsoft.
IMDB – Internet Movie Database https://www.imdb.com/ IMDb is an online database of information related to films, television series, podcasts, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and personal biographies, plot summaries, trivia, ratings, and fan and critical reviews. Members can rate and write reviews. It was launched way back in 1990 and is now a subsidiary of Amazon
Academia EDU – https://www.academia.edu/ A site where academics can share their old papers before they are forgotten ! A for-profit open repository of academic articles free to read by visitors. Uploading and downloading is restricted to registered users. Additional features are accessible only as a paid subscription. Various social networking utilities have been added since 2016
Wikiloc – https://www.wikiloc.com/ Record, share and rate your hiking trails. Wikiloc is a website, launched in 2006, containing GPS trails and waypoints that members have uploaded. This mashup shows the routes in frames showing Google Maps. The service is also available in Google Earth. There are mobile apps for Android and iPhone.
Google:
Many of its apps are linked to social media. e.g.
Groups – e.g the JCC Helpline.
Maps – Google users can post reviews and ratings of places, restaurants, hotels etc. People try to “game” it sometimes, though Google has tools to moderate what goes up there.
Photos – Upload your photos to share with family or the world through links. WebAlbums are a useful feature since you can add text.
YouTube – View, like and review informative and entertaining videos. Follow “channels” of particular content creators, create a list of your own likes. Plus you can create your own videos to upload and share.
Chris Betterton-Jones – Knowledge Junkie