What is the difference in memory types?

Could someone please explin the difference between,

Smart Media
Compact Flash
Memory Stick
Secure Digital/MMC

memory types , or point me to a site that explains?

Also which would be the better camera out of thse 2 they look almost identical in specs to me, but then i have no idea what im talking about here.

Camera 1
Camera 2

Thanks a lot for any advice!

Mem type is not important so much - better look at camers specs and quality.

But it may be important if:
- you have printer supporting some types and you wnat to use these slots
- some memeory types can have greater card capacity, so if you want to have lots of photos on one card, do some research, which cards you can buy
- some cards are cheaper, some more expensive, but it's also not too important as you don't buy lots of them / often

Stay away from memory stick, because it's proprietary to sony, and the prices are gouged accordingly. I would go with compactflash because it's the most widely used, the cheapest, and the greatest capacity, they're even sticking mini hard drives in them now! Other formats are smaller, but I see zero advantage to having something smaller than compactflash. Really.

SD is the best option, more durable and equally usable as compact flash, plus it is smaller and often used in flash drives like cruzer. So the portability beats any other format.