Social media employ mobile and web-based technologies to create highly interactive platforms
via which individuals and communities share, cocreate, discuss, and modify user-generated content.
Given the tremendous exposure of social media in the popular press today, it would seem that we
are in the midst of an altogether new communication landscape. The New York Times recently hired a
social media editor (Nolan, 2009); the Catholic Press Association (2010) offers a webinar on how the
church can use social media; and the Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, is on Twitter
with 1.8 million followers. Even Northwest Organic Valley brand milk cartons now display ‘find, friend,
and follow us’ slogans. But unknown to many, this landscape of social media sites and services started
forming more than a dozen years ago. For instance, in 1997, the social network site Sixdegrees allowed
users to create profiles, list their friends, and add friends-of-friends to their own lists (Boyd & Ellison,
2008). Sound familiar?