The Conversation Prism is a beautifully designed infographic, now in its fourth iteration, that provides an overview of social media sites and presents them as a taxonomy. Different sites are categorized according to their main purpose and/or use. Not only is the prism beautifully designed, but it also offers a great resource for individuals hoping to better understand and leverage the social media landscape. You will certainly see the “usual cast of characters” in here… Facebook… LinkedIn… but there are also a number of sites with which you may not be familiar. Click on the prism above to take a closer look and ask yourself:
- Are you familiar with all of the categories of tools available?
- Are there categories you need to learn more about?
- What new tools do you hope to explore that might help you achieve your goals?
Developed in 2008 by Brian Solis, The Conversation Prism is a visual map of the social media landscape. It’s an ongoing study in digital ethnography that tracks dominant and promising social networks and organizes them by how they’re used in everyday life.
In addition to The Conversation Prism, the folks over at Eduventures have created a taxonomy categorizing many of the higher education technology providers broken down by segment. Although not as visually striking as the Prism, the following will give you a starting point when you’re looking for solution providers to your edtech needs. Again, click the infographic to enlarge.
Pb 
That’s pretty neat!