In "The 4 C's of Social Media," I noted that coming up with a concise definition of social media, like defining "art," is challenging. Describing it through the four C's—content, context, connections and conversation—was one approach. Another is to look at the different types of websites and tools that comprise the social media landscape.
The intent of the lists below is to categorize the landscape and show the most prominent sites in each category. They aren't intended to be comprehensive, but rather to identify the high points in the social media topography.
Social Networking
Sites where you can post your profile, promote links to your company site / blog / etc., join groups based on various common interests and traits, ask and answer questions, provide updates and engage in other online networking activities.
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| Site | Alexa Rank (March 2009) | Compete Traffic (February 2009) | Compete 1-Year Traffic Change | Google Pagerank |
| Facebook | 5 | 73,787,766 | +159.0% | 8 |
| LinkedIn | 14 | 11,246,726 | +137.4% | 8 |
| Plaxo | 1,440 | 2,629,043 | +144.7% | 7 |
| Friendster | 47 | 1,454,029 | -20.0% | 7 |
| Naymz | 12,476 | 522,953 | +93.2% | 6 |
Social Bookmarking
Sites where you can post links to articles, blog posts or other content that you find interesting or want to promote, search for what's being posted on a particular topic, and, depending on the site, do things like join special interest groups, see what others are linking to, view the most popular links, vote on your favorites, promote content, and comment on links posted by others.
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| Site | Alexa Rank (March 2009) | Compete Traffic (February 2009) | Compete 1-Year Traffic Change | Google Pagerank |
| Digg | 243 | 33,433,760 | +51.2 | 8 |
| Reddit | 3,777 | 4,908,990 | +114.6% | 8 |
| StumbleUpon | 832 | 4,418,609 | +38.6% | 8 |
| Delicious | 2,735 | 1,623,083 | +2,176.8% | 8 |
| Propeller | 3,340 | 1,164,549 | -12.1% | 8 |
| Mixx | 589 | 879,108 | +341.2% | 8 |
| Furl | 19,326 | 164,949 | +10.7% | 7 |
| Searchles | 39,385 | 67,406 | +25.7% | 5 |
Blog Tracking
Sites where you can promote a blog, search blogs for specific topics, evaluate the popularity of various blogs and track selected blogs.
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| Site | Alexa Rank (March 2009) | Compete Traffic (February 2009) | Compete 1-Year Traffic Change | Google Pagerank |
| FeedBurner | 522 | 3,581,957 | +42.3% | 9 |
| Technorati | 599 | 3,309,174 | +25.2% | 8 |
| Bloglines | 9,182 | 435,118 | +2.6% | 8 |
| BlogPulse | 58,521 | 51,229 | +89.7% | 7 |
Media Sharing
Sites where you can upload, promote, search and share non-text media such as video, photos and podcasts.
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| Site | Alexa Rank (March 2009) | Compete Traffic (February 2009) | Compete 1-Year Traffic Change | Google Pagerank |
| Video |
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| YouTube | 3 | 69,110,425 | +16.9% | 9 |
| Vimeo | 537 | 2,648,778 | +848.1% | 7 |
| Viddler | 5,653 | 688,155 | +669.4% | 6 |
| Photos |
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| Photobucket | 36 | 24,470,242 | +5.8% | 7 |
| Flickr | 33 | 23,769,885 | +8.2% | 9 |
| Picasa | N/A | 1,023,139 | +48.2% | 8 |
| Podcasts |
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| iTunes | 94,360 | 889,156 | -10.3% | 8 |
| PodBean | 21,456 | 119,812 | +82.5% | 6 |
| Podcast Alley | 27,962 | 79,007 | +15.1% | 8 |
| Presentations |
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| SlideShare | 1,100 | 1,008,754 | +250.0% | 7 |
Reputation Management
Sites that help you establish your "personal brand" and can also drive traffic to your site or blog.
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| Site | Alexa Rank (March 2009) | Compete Traffic (February 2009) | Compete 1-Year Traffic Change | Google Pagerank |
| ZoomInfo | 2,702 | 1,864,047 | -6.5% | 6 |
| CrunchBase | 24,789 | 430,057 | +116.1% | 7 |
| VisualCV | 51,989 | 85,993 | +174.0% | 6 |
| LookupPage | 74,220 | 16,525 | N/A | 4 |
Wikis
Sites where you can conduct research, create new topic pages based on your expertise, edit existing content pages, and—in the case of Google Knol—rate the contributions of others. These sites use the insidious "nofollow" tag, so they have no SEO value. They are useful, however, for establishing the expertise of an individual or organization on a specific topic, and can drive referral traffic. Wikipedia is the most difficult to edit due to the tight control maintained by the site's primary editors and their hostility to any content that can be construed, however remotely, as promotional. Knol may lack Wikipedia's cachet, but it's a much friendlier place.
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| Site | Alexa Rank (March 2009) | Compete Traffic (February 2009) | Compete 1-Year Traffic Change | Google Pagerank |
| Wikipedia | 7 | 62,228,655 | +11.4% | 9 |
| Knol | N/A | 386,772 | +22,303.6% | 7 |
| Freebase | 22,726 | 206,489 | +1,132.2% | 6 |
Other
Sites that are difficult to categorize. Yes, Twitter is a micro-blogging platform and there are others, but does anyone use them?
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| Site | Alexa Rank (March 2009) | Compete Traffic (February 2009) | Compete 1-Year Traffic Change | Google Pagerank |
| Twitter | 314 | 7,935,441 | +964.5% | 9 |
| Squidoo | 483 | 4,324,281 | +43.3% | 8 |
| FriendFeed | 4,771 | 876,616 | +984.5% | 7 |
What did I miss? I'd like this to be a "living" post, so let me know of any sites that should be here but aren't and I'll update this list periodically.
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