CMS vs. Web 2.0 vs. Social Media – Do You Know the Difference?

On the SLQOTD on Twitter today, I am asking “What is the difference between a Web 1.0, CMS, Web 2.0 and Social Media.” Here is my take:

Web 1.0 is a push from one ‘person’ to many people. To make a change or add, it often has to go through a process if internal to an organization or the person needs to know HTML (I am making some generalizations here, but go with me…) There is one person who owns the content and who is the authority. It is focused on the information or document and the user cannot customize what they want to see.

A CMS (Content Management System) has more of a hub and spoke model. One person puts the information (usually in the form of a document) into the repository. Others can go get it. I call it a 1:portal:1 model. Can it be collaborative? With some pains, yes. It isn’t quite real time, but can approach it. One person owns the document, even though many may have some input. The focus, of course, is on the document and the user usually cannot customize what they want to see.

Web 2.0 is many:many and allows information to freely be inputed and distributed instantly. The authority… is there one? And the focus is on content – that everyone can create and add to the existing base. And, in most cases, the user can customize what they want to receive.

Social Media is very similar to Web 2.0. In fact, in the compared characteristics, the only thing that is different is that it focuses on people, rather than content. The focus is on building the community.

YouTube.com by itself is Web 2.0 in nature and not a social media site. Add in ‘channels’ and it starts to have a social media mentality. Yesterday I saw tweets about the DOD’s new ‘social media’ site. I did not sign up, but from what I can tell, it is mostly Web 1.0, with a little bit of interaction, or Web 2.0. I don’t see anything out of the gate relating to social media. The focus of it is to push information out from a main source to you. They throw in asking a few questions of the audience, but that is about it.

Now, to be fair, that is all they probably wanted to do. They didn’t need a social media site. And if they don’t need it and they don’t do it, then good for them! Too many companies put in social media solutions when all they REALLY need is a web 1.0 solution. But we, as the consumers, should not call this DoD site social media.

I am finding that many people do not know the difference between the above categories and we, as professionals, need to be able to articulte this so that they will understand the benefits of each and when and when not to use each.

Tagged as: cms, social media, Web 2.0