Define Social Media

Business.com's 2009 Business Social Media Benchmark Study shows that social media adoption for B2B marketing and PR purposes is growing, but I think the usefulness of the study is marred by its overly expansive (though unstated) definition of social media.

Is a podcast a social medium? When I think of people plugged into their iPods and notebooks on commuter trains, my first impulse is to define podcasts as antisocial media, but this of course begs the question:

What are social media?

The most basic definition is that social media is many-to-many as opposed to one-to-many communications. For me this rules out podcasts, because they are a one-way communication, rather than a conversation.

Another defining aspect of social media is that they are peer-to-peer. For me this rules out webinars, because webinars almost always involve a supposed expert lecturing to an audience wishing to learn from that expert's expertise.

Blogs can be considered social media, but they have to be considered on a case-by-case basis, because their status as social media depends on their operating principles. For example, a blog is not much of a conversation if the comments are turned off or heavily censored by moderation.

As always, I welcome your thoughts.