Popular Social Media tools

Blogging Tools

Commonly used blogging tools include Wordpress and Blogspot. Wordpress is also available as a module to be installed onto your webserver and you can host your own blogs.

Blogs are commonly used by individuals as a form of diary to share their personal experiences and feelings. However, more companies and online magazines use this today for their posting articles, reviews and their own branding purposes.

Microblogging

Twitter and Plurk are fast gaining popularity in the Social Media community. Microblogging is a form of blogging that is restricted to only 140 characters. People do not need to spend so much time following someone on his blog as now the messages are now only 140 characters long.

With proper use of links and hashtags, microblogging is definitely becoming a very viral form of Social Media with far reaching capabilities.

Media sharing tools

Flickr and Youtube are great resources to find photos and videos on a topic you are interested in. On Flickr, people put up pictures of travel locations and events to share it with their friends and sometimes the world.

On Youtube, you can find all sorts of videos that people upload into the Internet. You can find trailers, home movies, recorded parades, funny commercial and much more which can be a definite way to spend some time entertaining yourself.

Social Networking Sites

Facebook is a very big and popular Social Networking site. With more than 200 million users on Facebook, it is slowing becoming the most dominant Social Networking site. Facebook is a site that you can connect with friends and meet new friends, share photos, play games and organize events.

LinkedIn is a professional networking site where you can connect with your professional friends. You get to meet up with other people in similar industries and you can get introduction through your friends to others and you can give recommendation of your peers as well.



Wikis

A Wiki is a site that allows pooled knowledge about a topic that is contributed by the public. Wikipedia is a online encyclopedia which the public contributes information on everything.

When a topic is deemed too abstract and of no interest to a certain group of people, it is sometimes removed from Wikipedia, however many other people have setup wiki sites for topics for their own use, such as a wiki for a TV series or cartoon.

Forums

Online forums and bulletin boards are sites where users are allowed to register and post some discussion on a certain topic that is of interest to them. Other people with similar interest will post their replies and form a community to chat about their similar interests.

Virtual World

Second life is a good example of a virtual world. Usually, there is a subscription involved and you play a character in a world where you can interest with other players like you would in the real world.

MMO

Massively Multiplayer Online Games. Similar to virtual world, MMO allows players to control virtual characters to join in campaigns to complete quests or battle other factions. Unlike Virtual world where there is often just simple interactions, MMO involves more complex rules and character leveling up in skills and powers as they play along.