The paper presents a framework for describing electronic media services. The framework was created by utilising earlier models and case studies of successful social media applications. Wikipedia, YouTube and MySpace were analysed because they are among the most popular sites in the world and they highlight different aspects of social media applications. The proposed model consists of two main parts: Concept and system, and Content and user. Both of them were further divided into four subgroups. With the help of a radar view, various applications can be described and compared and their further development opportunities identified. A prototype application, StorySlotMachine, is used as a case example, where the framework is used.