What's the difference between the social web and social media?

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been asked at least a dozen times why The Social Web Analytics eBook 2008 refers to the “Social Web” and not “Social Media”. In fact, the terms appear to have attracted similar usage according to a quick Google search count today:

“social web analytics” - Google estimates 18,600 results
“social media analytics” - Google estimates 20,100 results

Interestingly, however, the term “social media” attracts more than twice the search count estimate as “social web”:

“social web” - Google estimates 8,250,000 results
“social media” - Google estimates 19,700,000 results

Social media is a subset of the social web.

Xdi on Philip Sheldrake

What's the difference between the social web and social media?

So what’s going on? What is social media?