Social Media vs. Social Netorking...Who Cares?

Blogger Lon Cohen made a valiant effort on his blog to define the difference between social media and social networking. [http://ping.fm/wK3xm]

While his description and rationale are reasonable it makes you wonder why worry about it.

The key (and common) phrase is "social" and that denotes interaction. Without the interaction LinkedIn, Plaxo, Ning, even Facebook would just be file sharing websites.

The lines have certainly blurred as more and more sites build in "social functionality" --commenting, sharing, rating, polling, chat etc.

And while there are certainly some technology purist who believe that having clear definitions for the categories and sub categories is crucial. To the average "Social Whateva" user it's just not relevant.

With more and more social services launching or being cobbled onto existing websites, users are more concerned with which ones are best suited to their needs and lifestyle and are simple enough to use...regardless of what the technoratti want to call it.

Remember there still people today that debate whether they are on "the web", "the Internet" or gasp..."online".

Let's get social!

The DoubleShot Team

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