At its core, it’s people and it’s talking. It’s a dialogue. and yet we have given it a fancy name. But at the end of the day, it’s doing something that a lot of us have trouble doing. talking. Go figure. talking, communicating and sharing; and maybe that’s why a lot of people are amazed at its impact. Because it’s pulling people out of their shells, out of their cocoons.
At the end of the day social media is the art of having a worthwhile conversation, using tools to have those conversations and then in some cases, wrapping business processes and applications around them. Sometimes I think we over-analyze what’s really going on here.
Direct Marketing Observations 
I think its the opposite of talking… Typing is nothing like talking, there is much less participation in typing, you can re-type to get just the right words and most “social media” sites require a lot more passive participation. You can cut off a video in the middle if its boring to you, have you ever walked away in the middle of talking to someone? I agree the title “social media” is a misnomer, there is nothing truly social about most of this media. I believe the basic requirement of physical presence is required for something to be social. This is interactive media….
A great call-out and reminder about where the true focus of social media should be. Strangely, I don’t feel that many companies actually adopted social media for conversations but cheap (or even free) publicity instead.