What is the difference between Social Networking and Social Media?

The difference between the web of a few years ago and the web today is Social Media⁺.

Social Media is basically communication online. That doesn’t sound too complicated, huh? But for many beginners it can be. There are many different forms of Social Media… many different ways of communicating online.

Getting involved in Social Media can be intimidating. So much so that you might not know where to even begin. There is Facebook⁺, MySpace⁺, Twitter⁺, Plurk, Mixx, Digg. There are blogs, forums, wikis, photo sharing, vlogging (video blogging), and others. They are all different, so which do you devote your time to?

Social media is still media: a means to transmit information. The difference is that social media offers the opportunity for anyone to create or disseminate the information.

Social networking refers to people with some shared characteristics associating together, and social networks or social networking sites are where this happens.

We don’t think of television or radio as places; they are channels for communication and we can access the information at our home, in our car, or at our favorite sports bar. The message may be pervasive: it isn’t tied to a specific location. It is the message that is primary. Media isn’t a place.

Networking tends to be more context-focused. When we speak of social networking sites, we speak of Facebook or mySpace. In real life, we may think of where we like to spend our time: the golf course, the gym, the local starbucks. We may go to these places because of the people and the atmosphere, because it gives us the opportunity to engage with others with similar interests or experiences.