DISQUS

Contemporary discussions around social media tend to define social media, in contradistinction to traditional media. Does that mean that traditional media i.e. pre-Internet media are unsocial? I think that every communications medium is social in so far it achieves its essential role, that is, to successfully mediate communication between two people. Then it is by definition social. Unsocial media are broken media.

The most oft quoted distinction between social and traditional media has been the direction of communication. Social media are two-way while traditional media are one-way. But communication does not have to be two-way to be communication. That is why we speak of one-way communication; because it involves the successful communication of one person’s message to another. But then pre-Internet media are also social. Then why is everybody talking about ‘Social Media’? What is new about them? Visit my blog post at http://agoraplace.wordpress.com/2008/01/15/the-... that deals with question.

Excellent post. Although i believe in the value of terms like Web 2.0 they sometimes contribute to a myopic perspective on things. Email is 'sooo We b 1.0' that we forget its backbone role in facilitating the kind of social interaction that is definitive of Web 2.0.

But what is most important is that what you say seems surprising to us all. The cause of our surprise is nothing else than our misplaced web 2.0-tool myopia. Otherwise, if we had really understood web 2.0, the 'social web', there would be no need for you to write this post. Thanks.

Max reading the first paragraph in your post made me think enough to write a post. BTW you seem to have dropped the phrase 'customer engagement' out of your vocabulary completely.