Social Media

Online technology tools broadly known as "social media" that enable people to create and share content which may include text, images, video, audio and multimedia communications. Social media enable shared community experiences, both online and in person; and allow people with basic computer skills to tell their stories using publishing tools such as blogs, video logs (vlogs), photo sharing, podcasting (audio stories broadcast from the Web or downloaded to a computer or portable media players) and wikis (collaboratively edited Web pages). They can also help to filter and organize the overwhelming amount of information on the Web. Some better known examples include Wikipedia, MySpace, YouTube and Flickr. Other communities develop for support (Cancer Survivors Network), networking (LinkedIn) or political action (Open Congress). In this context, a community is a group of people with common interests who connect with one another to learn, play, work, organize and socialize. Virtual communities can be large or small, local or global, public or restricted to members.