“Social Media” is a term for which there is no consensus regarding its definition. Last week, while writing “Push + Pull” [ https://fuckwith.news.blog/2026/04/22/push-pull ], I also (sort of haphazardly) discovered a blog / website at heidicohen.com which appears to be defunct now. That site includes a post in which many who seem to claim to be something like “social media experts” were asked to offer a definition of the term. Most of these experts failed miserably — the vast majority did not even muster scratching together something which could even qualify as a definition, but a very small few actually managed to at least make some amusing statements. For example, Heidi Cohen herself contributed this very well crafted morsel:
Social Media are the platforms that enable the interactive web. They do so by engaging users to participate in, comment on and create content as means of communicating with their social graph, other users and the public.
https://heidicohen.com/social-media-definition
I would say that she deserves brownie points for being grammatically correct that the word “media” seems to denote a plural phenomenon.
Since this is (hopefully) the beginning of a series of meditations, I think it’s entirely appropriate to get back to “Square #1”. So let’s try to clue the “newbies” (let’s say anyone born since the turn of the millennium) how “social media” came about.
At the turn of the millennium, the “Web” world was sort of in disarray. Search had not been “solved”, but even more important to the traditional publishing industry was the fact that their entire business model looked very much doomed to collapse because of what was “going on” (and I was very prone to quoting Marvin Gaye back then 😉 ).
Then the “dotcom crash” happened (I actually prefer to call it the “dot crash”, as I still see the “dotcom crash” looming in the future). After all of the rubble was rubbed away, the Google Guys got up on stage and declared that they had solved search. Perhaps there were also a few backroom deals going on, and then what emerged was an IPO with much fanfare … and ultimately Google owning the entire online advertising industry (if you’re a newb, you might want to try “looking up” something that used to be called “DoubleClick”). Another hiccup that happened at that time was that Google devised a new algorithm that satisfied Wall Street, Madison Ave and almost every other location from the Redwood Forest to the New York Island (and perhaps even beyond … ). In case you newbs want some extra credit: try looking up the “nofollow” tag … which essentially invalidated a very large part to WWW communications and simply declared this information to be worthless.
This was of course hunky-dory for the very short-sighted publishing industry. Little did they know that they would soon be working for table scraps and would otherwise also become entirely superfluous.
Pretty much the only thing that has changed since then is this phenomenon many people refer to as “social media”, yet which no one seems able to provide a definition for. Ironically, many in the aforementioned “newbie” generation often use technology referred to as “social media” for search.
Which brings me to one of the main points I wish to, um, point out: Search has not been solved. Not completely. And maybe not even one iota (see e.g. “This is just a load of crap” [ https://podcasts.video.blog/2022/01/08/this-is-just-a-load-of-crap ] ).
A quarter century ago the Google Guys came out waving their arms and spraying bottles of champagne, and all we got was “suckered“. [1]
That said, I think hardly anyone has actually realized this. The myth that search has been solved (and that the answer is Google) is very much alive and kicking. Let me explain it this way: Who do you want to pay today? (I guess maybe I should also explain to the newbs that this sounds very much like an advertisement that Microsoft actually did a while back).
For many people, the answer to this question seems simple and straightforward (see also “If Google is the Pope of the Internet, Then Who Are You & I?“). Again ironically, the messaging from Google sometimes seems different (see “Google can’t answer question about using Google (or NOT)” [ https://search.tech.blog/2025/06/10/google-cant-answer-question-about-using-google-or-not ] ).
Socio Business blog 