Social Media Services
What are social media services?
With the development of the Internet, the interest and willingness of users to provide their own content on the web has increased. This does not always have to be on their own homepage. It is often easier to publish photos, experiences or comments on websites that are technically offered by third parties.
In doing so, it is often possible to comment on or even further develop the data published by others. Hence the name “social media”.
Typical social media services
The appeal of the Internet today is not only to retrieve information, but also to exchange information about it. Many people also like to spread information about themselves.
Some services allow you to keep a “blog”, a kind of Internet diary. The entries are visible to everyone and can be commented on. In addition, there are also portals where you can publish your photos.
With social media offerings such as Facebook or Twitter, you can share photos, links to interesting sites or just your current mood with certain groups of people or even everyone via your own website. Others can comment on these entries and thus exchange information with you.
A variety of so-called messenger services such as WhatsApp or Threema are used for the spontaneous exchange of short messages and photos, usually via smartphone.
Most social media services are free of charge and signing up is quick (but unsubscribing is sometimes not!).
Social Media = Social Media?
The term “social media” is difficult to translate. The English “social” is not to be understood here in the sense of “helping” or “charitable”, but rather of “communal”.
In the meantime, the English term has also become accepted in German-speaking countries, so that it is also used here.