The Now Web: The web will die this summer.

The Social Web is currently used for Sharing. Sharing pictures, links, profiles, hobbies and such. The current social web does enable some people to people meetings too. This people to people meeting via the social web promises to completely change how goods and services are produced and consumed. The Social Web represents the future network that will supplant the web in most peoples consciousness. The web will most likely die this summer and most people will only know about their Social Networks.

This Social Web combined with Social media will create an open global distributed knowledge sharing network similar to today's World Wide Web, except instead of linking documents, the Social Web will link people, organizations, causes and concepts. Social media are distinct from industrial media, such as newspapers, television, and film because they blur the line between consumers and producers. With Social media we are all both at the same time.

Cheap tools that enable anyone (even private individuals) to publish or access information, means that industrial media will eventually become too impractical. Social media is content created by people using highly accessible and scalable publishing technologies. Social media creates shared meanings, new knowledge and new ideas.

The term Social media most often refers to activities that integrate technology, telecommunications and social interaction, and the construction of words, pictures, videos and audio. This interaction, and the manner in which information is presented, depends on the varied perspectives and "building" of shared meaning among communities, as people share their stories and experiences. Businesses also refer to social media as user-generated content (UGC) or consumer-generated media (CGM). (see Social media)

Reach, Recency, Usability, Usefulness and Accessibility

Standard media measures show that Social media is more effective than industrial media.

Reach - both industrial and social media technologies provide scale and enable anyone to reach a global audience though Social media is faster, cheaper and simpler.
Recency — though industrial media is currently adopting social media tools to keep up with how fast social media moves knowledge, its unlikely that an organization can compete with millions of creative and resourceful people. Social media will always be faster, vibrant and more authentic than anything done by any team.
Usability — industrial media production often requires specialized skills and training. Most social media does not, so anyone can operate the means of production. Social media can be consumed in different formats and on different devices.
Usefulness — Most social media is active. Everyone can affect the story. Old media is passive, like watching TV.
Accessibility - Social media tools are generally available to anyone at little or no cost.That means that anyone can compete with LA Times!

Social media depend on interactions between people as the discussion and integration of words to build shared-meaning, using technology as a conduit. Social media is continuous and eternal. The story never ends. The audience can participate in social media by adding comments,instant messaging or even editing the stories themselves.

Perhaps the best analogy for the Social Web is the worldwide banking and credit card system. This infrastructure has evolved over centuries to facilitate the global exchange of a very sensitive form of data — money — by establishing a common means of exchange among trusted third party service providers — banks. The Social Web takes the same approach for exchange of private, sensitive information by establishing a common means of exchange among trusted third party service providers — i-brokers. (see Social web )