Information in Motion: A Note on Social MediaSocial Media are content (text, video, audio, or multimedia) that are published and shared in a social environment, such as a blog, podcast, forum, wiki or video hosting site. More broadly, "social media" refers to Web technologies that let users publish, share, and discuss content themselves

Social networking sites (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn), news aggregators (e.g. Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, etc.) and blogs have made it easy for anyone to share, discuss, and comment on information from all over the Web.

These sites can be a good way to encounter new information you are interested in, but this means that you might not encounter information in its original context. Remember to take the extra step and track the information back to where it was originally published. You'll be able to judge the credibility of the information best if you see it in its original context.