Social Media Field Guide: Part2 - Forums, Blogs, Micro-Blogging

(Part 1 Available Here)

(Part 2 )
Forums

An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site. It is the modern equivalent of a traditional bulletin board, and a technological evolution of the dialup bulletin board system. From a technology standpoint, forums or boards are web applications managing user-generated content. People participating in an Internet forum can communicate with each other and interest groups will easily form around a topic's discussion, subjects dealt with in or around sections in the forum.

Blogs /Blogging

Lets start with blogs. Blogs is short for weblog. A weblog is an online journal that is frequently updated and intended for general public consumption by individuals, corporations, and organizations. Blogs have grown in popularity tremendosly over the past 5 years. They have become a go-to source for news information, daily life journaling, and educatonal posting. The community of bloggers and their industry space is often referred to as the blogosphere.

There are many well know blog publishing systems, here are some of them that you can use and most are free.

• Blogger is a free blog publishing tool from Google for easily sharing your thoughts with the world.


• LiveJournal is a free service for all your journaling and blogging needs


• TypePad is a blogging service from company Six Apart Ltd, and the largest paid blogging service in the world.


• WordPress is an open source blog publishing application


• Technorati is an Internet search engine for searching blogs, competing with Google and Yahoo. As of June 2008, Technorati indexes 112.8 million blogs and over 250 million pieces of tagged social media. The name Technorati is a portmanteau, pointing to the technological version of literati, or intellectuals.

Industry Blog Sites

Real Estate: Real Estate Blog Publishing Networks

Active Rain - ActiveRain Real Estate Network, a free social network and marketing platform for real estate professionals.This network helps agents to create business relationships both within the industry and with the consumer.

Travel: Travel Reviews

Conde Naste Travler on Concierge.com -( http://www.concierge.com/cntraveler/articlesblogs )

The Perrin Post - Travel tips from Condé Nast Traveler magazine's Wendy Perrin

The Daily Traveler - The editors at Conde Nast Traveler answer questions and share travel secrets, tips, and dispatches from the road

Travel Blog Publishing Networks

Travelpod.com - TravelPod's free travel blog lets you chart your trips on a map, share unlimited photos and videos, and stay in touch while you travel

Micro-blogging

Micro-blogging is a form of media that involves short format communication. Users publish brief text updates as well as photos and/or audio & video clips. Micro-blogging is a concise way to deliver information instantly. Here are some well known micro-blogging sites.Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing? Jaiku is a social networking, micro-blogging and lifestreaming service purchased by Google in 2007.

(Part 3 - Click Here)