Instead of coming up with some kind of classification system myself out of nothing, I did a search about some existing classification system. I found this article very interesting, and I agree with the classification system it proposes, at least for this time being. This seems the most widely accepted classification system by now, unless we come up with something else within our brilliant minds in our brilliant Tech621 class 🙂
I think Content Communities and Social networking sites took a large part of the social media sites, at least the 20 social media sites each of us in the Tech621 has come up with.
This article also talks about the definition of social media in comparison with Web 2.0, which is the topic we have discussed last week. This article talks about another concept User Generated Content. In the opinion of this article, Web 2.0 is considered as the platform for the evolution of Social Media, and Social Media is a group of internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0 and that allow the creation and exchange of User Generated Content. This makes sense, I think maybe there is a way to merge this with our discussion result in last class.
There is a section in this article titled: “2. What is Social Media–—And what is it not?” I was anticipating greatly to hear it talks about what Social Media is NOT, but I think, as far as the way I read it, it only talks about what is social media, then went ahead to talk about the classification of social media, didn’t really talk about what it is not…
Examples and Thoughts:
High Self-representation, Low Media Richness: Blog (LiveJournal), Micro-blogs (Twitter, Sina Weibo)
(I should say that blogs and micro-blogs are initially for sharing thoughts using text, but people can also post rich media like photos and video clips there. As technologies advance, some things or features tend to fuse, but I still think this is a valid classification based on the initial purposes.)
High Self-representation, Medium Media Richness: Social Networking Sites (Facebook, RenRen, , Couchsurfing, Foursquare, Friendfeed, Posterous, Orkut), Friendster (Social Gaming), Dating websites (Fubar)
High Self-representation, High Media Richness: Virtual Social (Second Life)
Low Self-representation, Low Media Richness: collaborative projects (Wiki, Googl doc), Q & A forum (Quora), old discussion groups (Usenet, telnet, BBS), information searching and sharing (Yelp, Eventful, Sourceforge), Zotero
Low Self-representation, Medium Media Richness: YouTube, Flikr, SlateBox (collaborative visualization tool), Spotify, Xiami, LastFm
(There are people on YouTube writing video diaries, which support an even higher self-representation than Facebook. I can only say that there are unlimited possibilities how people use social media, as long as the technologies allow people to do so. Even when the technologies do not support, people will make it possible by improve the technologies. Social media is evolving by people’s need and sometimes random thoughts, not by how they classify the sites initially, but when we still need to classify them, one standard is their initial or main purpose.)
Low Self-representation, High Media Richness: World of Warcraft
Cindy Chen's Blog 
I appreciate your research, but in some way, I feel you are taking the easy way out. I still think you should try to create your own classification. If not, at the very least explain why this one (and the 2 dimensions it uses) are so appropriate. Fit in the social media sites you and your classmates identified in this classification (not all of them, but some examples). Are there any sites that do not fit in here, or does this classification accommodate all of them?
Thank you for your commenting. I admit that I kind of took a short cut 🙂 I broke a thermometer and the mercury split everywhere in my room on the carpet, so I spent lots of time clean it, in case they evaporate and poison somebody 🙂 just kidding, no excuse. I updated it and put some examples there. I found some problem, like YouTube, it can be low self-representation, and can be high self-representation too, because some people use YouTube to post video diaries. This is a result of various ways how people use social media, may not be consistent with the purpose it’s initially designed for. Social Media evolves as people use it. But I still like this classification based on those main purposes of social media websites. Maybe we could add a Medium self-representation categories to make it more complete.
Yes, you bring up a good point about YouTube. It is used in SO many ways! We also talked after class about the interaction of affordances, interface design, and the social norms (culture) that emerge in a given social media site. That’s something I’ve been fascinated with for a long time.
P.S.
I hope you weren’t handling the thermometer because you were sick!
I think it’s a very innovative way to look at the problem. While the borders in the table are visually clear, they are not conceptually so in my mind. Defining low, medium, and high always freaks me out simply because they are not easily quantified. Did they mention rationales why they classified certain sites into one but not the other?