The Era of Social Media

1. Introduction

The era of social media was first started in 1999. The origin itself was named UseNet, created in 1979 where people were allowed to post messages to the public. Social media can be defined as a group of internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0; it also allows the creation and exchange of User Generated Content (UGC). On the other hand, crowdsourcing is said to coexist with social media. Crowdsourcing is best defined as the practice of gathering information, idea, or any content from a large group of people, often without any compensation (prescientdigital.com 2014). Thus, it cannot be denied the fact that social media correlate with crowdsourcing and therefore social media can be used as a media to crowdsource information. This research paper aims to identify the origin of social media and crowdsourcing, the use of social media, the relation between social media and crowdsourcing, and discuss some of the biggest collaborative projects that exist because of social media.

2. Body

2.1 Definition of Social Media

Kaplan and Haenlein (2010) stated that Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis were the first ones whom created the first system that allows people to post public messages in 1979. The worldwide discussion system was named Usenet by then. However, the era of social media only started about 20 years later. Bruce and Susan Abelson developed “Open Diary” at that time and were used to gather online diary writers into one community. At the same time, the term “weblog” was used until one blogger jokingly transformed the noun “weblog” into the sentence “we blog”. High-speed Internet access raised the popularity of the concept which later social networking sites we...

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...o problems, as Mau (cited in Brabham 2008) stated the fact that problem solving is no longer a matter of one’s ability to solve the problem; solutions are rather developed and distributed publicly. An example of crowdsourcing would be a business posting their company online and a group of people offer their solutions for the company and the winning idea will be given reward. Thus, it is beneficial for the company as crowdsourcing gathers mass ideas or solutions that might help them when facing problems. However, it is important to note that the solutions will become the property of the company, thus it is argued that crowdsourcing is actually an open-source practice.

2.3 The use of Social Media

2.4 Relation between Social Media and Crowdsourcing

As it has been mentioned in the above,

2.5 Collaborative Projects through the Use of Social Media

3. Conclusion