Ethority created a rather beautiful graphic called “Social Media Prisma“– now available in its version 3.0. It unfolds the different categories of social media and shows some of the actual products in the different sections.

I think a classification like they provide will be helpful when discussing Social Media–especially in the German speaking part of this planet where people need to define a new paradigm before they will discuss it or embark on it.

Since the field of Social Media is expanding into new areas it is difficult or impossible to come up with a clear definition. If one provides such a definition one will have to revise it in regular intervals. An operational definition like the one provided in the infograph below is useful to introduce the field to industry.

Social Media Prism by ethority.de (click to magnify--and then click again to magnify further)

The categories Ethority provide in the infographic are:

• Reviews/Ratings
• Social Bookmarks
• Q&A Sites
• Life Casting/Life-streams
• Social Shopping/Social Commerce
• Crowdsourced Content
• Collaboration
• Blog Platforms/Communities
• Blog Search
• Micromedia
• Twitter Ecosystems
• Location Based Services
• Social Networks
• Forums
• SMS/Voice, Instant Messaging
• Interest and Curated Networks
• Reputation
• Video
• Documents/Content
• Social Gaming
• Browser Gaming
• Music
• Wikis
• Pictures
• Special Interest Reviews

Related articles

• Social Media Around the World 2011 (ponderingtechnology.wordpress.com)
• Facebook, Twitter, Google+: Making Social Media Measurable (ponderingtechnology.wordpress.com)
• Why Social Media Should Not Be Defined (theengagingbrand.typepad.com)
• Marketing Managers don’t rate social media skills as important (thedigitalden.com.au)
• Social Media – Social Media Definition – What Is Social Media (sbinfocanada.about.com)
• Social Media Defined (socialmediadefined.com)
• A New Definition of Social Media (Gartner)
• Just What is Social Media, Exactly? (Mashable.com)
• Working Three | Understanding what social media really is (workingthree.com)