We've just pulled together a table below to help explain what tools can be used to solve particular social media needs, such as describing service offerings and sending service offering information. Three points to bear in mind.

First is the difference between putting information up on the web and waiting for people to visit--this is called "pull" technology--versus sending information to desired recipients, which is called "push" technology. Both address the challenge of getting the content in front of the desired users.

Second is that there is a lot of overlap in the tools, such that blogs and calendars and drives are all types of web sites.

Third is that along with the increasing popularity of tablets and smart devices comes the migration of processing from laptops and desktops into the "cloud." From the user's perspective, benefits from this transformation include lower cost of end user devices, lower end user device maintenance costs, and the ability to access information in the cloud from everywhere.

Leading industry players including Amazon, Google, and Microsoft are battling to serve this need. The latter two are offering suites of services, including operating systems, word processors, spreadsheets, email, etc. While Microsoft is an investor in Facebook, note that neither Microsoft nor Google have significant Facebook-like or Twitter-like offerings of their own. Microsoft's commitment to cloud services is reflected in the fact that their newly appointed CEO, Satya Nadella, was most recently led Microsoft's cloud services.