About: social media platforms and sharing applications

A lot of people (friends, family, clients, peers, contacts, mates, colleagues, superiors, etc.) tend to ask me about what is this or what is that when it comes down to 'social media'. To newbies it is like they've just been awakened by some terrifying animal. To regulars it is like they've discovered gold. Some go talking mad with web 2.0 mumbo jumbo and others give long explanations and examples about what to do with these emerging and established services.

I hate it when people go raving about a new service or platform, though I admit doing it it myself sometimes. It's not about this service or that new platform. It is not about whether it is new or groundbreaking. It's about what you can do with, or more importantly how you can use it to create value to you, your friends or relatives, your brand, your company etc. If it doesn't bring anything to the table, just let it be. I'd like to help some people to get back down to earth when they are talking about social media services and applications. They are mere tools for sharing and interacting. They enable the possibility to keep up with what your friends do, they enable participation. They are not the essence of what is going on. You are, remember.

So next is a list about about. It is about all there has to be said about the most renown services in the realm of social media. Of course there are thousands and thousands of platforms to be listed, one more famous than another, but to me these are the babies!

• To me Delicious is just a favorites folder.
Delicious by Google description:
The world's leading social bookmarking service (formerly del.icio.us).
Delicious by Delicious about:
Delicious allows you to bookmark a page and add tags, or descriptive keywords, to identify it. You can then share your del.icio.us page with colleagues and your saved bookmarks will be grouped with similary tagged pages from around the web.

• To me Facebook is just a diary.
Facebook by Google description:
Facebook is a social utility that connects people with friends and others who work, study and live around them. People use Facebook to keep up with friends,...
Facebook by Facebook about:
Facebook gives people the power to share and makes the world more open and connected. Millions of people use Facebook everyday to keep up with friends, upload an unlimited number of photos, share links and videos, and learn more about the people they meet.

• To me Flickr is just a photo album.
Flickr by Google description:
Flickr is almost certainly the best online photo management and sharing application in the world. Show off your favorite photos and videos to the world, ...
Flickr by Flickr about:
Flickr - almost certainly the best online photo management and sharing application in the world - has two main goals: 1. We want to help people make their content available to the people who matter to them. 2. We want to enable new ways of organizing photos and video.

• To me Friendfeed is just an aggregator.
Friendfeed by Google description:
Allows you to build a customised feed of made up of content your friends on other collaborative sites have shared, including news articles, photos, ...
Friendfeed by Friendfeed about:
FriendFeed enables you to keep up-to-date on the web pages, photos, videos and music that your friends and family are sharing. It offers a unique way to discover and discuss information among friends. FriendFeed automatically imports shared stuff from sites across the web, so if your friend favorites a video on YouTube or uploads a photo on Flickr, you get a link and a thumbnail of the video in your feed. FriendFeed makes all the sites you already use a little more social.

• To me LastFM is just a music library.
LastFM by Google description:
The world’s largest online music catalogue, with free music streaming, videos, photos, lyrics, charts, artist biographies, concerts and internet radio.
LastFM by LastFM about:
Every track you play will tell your Last.fm profile something about what you like. It can connect you to other people who like what you like - and recommend songs from their music collections and yours too.
When you recommend some music to a friend, or you tag it, or you write about it - even just listening to it - you shift the song's importance on the site. It'll be recommended to different people, because you've listened to it. It'll move up our music charts and maybe more people will hear it because you thought it was good.

• To me MySpace just sucks.

• To me Twitter is just a messaging service.
Twitter by Google description:
Twitter is a free social messaging utility for staying connected in real-time.
Twitter by Twitter about:
Twitter is a unique approach to communication and networking based on the simple concept of status. What are you doing? What are your friends doing—right now? With Twitter, you may answer this question over SMS or the Web and the responses are shared between contacts.

• To me YouTube is just a moviebox.
YouTube by Google description:
Share your videos with friends, family, and the world.
YouTube by YouTube about:
YouTube is the leader in online video, and the premier destination to watch and share original videos worldwide through a Web experience. YouTube allows people to easily upload and share video clips on www.YouTube.com and across the Internet through websites, mobile devices, blogs, and email. Everyone can watch videos on YouTube. People can see first-hand accounts of current events, find videos about their hobbies and interests, and discover the quirky and unusual. As more people capture special moments on video, YouTube is empowering them to become the broadcasters of tomorrow.

Ok, I knew you 'experts' wouldn't be satisfied so here's an extra list of services I'm in on, happy now?
digg - furl - magnolia - netvibes - picasa - stumbleupon - tumblr - shelfari - swurl - hyves - wishlistr - commandshift3 - rssmeme - visualiseus - slideshare - hashtags - technorati - seesmic - twitturly - identica - mybloglog - garagetv - netlog - curbly - vimeo - scrnshots