What is Social Media?

Some folks want to delete the topic 'Social Media' at Wikipedia. There is an interesting discussion around this.

So, as I was driving up to Silicon Valley the other day to participate in a consulting gig around social media, I started to wonder "what is social media?"

For one thing, it seems like most media is social to some degree unless you create it for yourself. I think that the media is not so much social as is our production and consumption of it.

It's like food: you can enjoy it alone, or you can go out and have a nice dinner with friends or a productive lunch with co-workers. Food is even produced with individual or group consumption in mind.

Likewise, some media is meant to be consumed alone and some is meant to be enjoyed with friends. Again, like food, some media can swing both ways.