Blogs Vs. Wikis

Blogs and wiki have become a very popular and great advancement for people to connect, express and share their ideas to the world by being able to collaborate, share experiences, information, and many other personal subjects A Blog is something like a personal diary online, that allows an individual, or group of individuals, to share a running log of events and personal insights with online audiences, it is like an online journal. As for a wiki it is a type of Web page that allows individuals to create and modify pages easily and quickly. It’s like a collaborative website, which can be edited, updated and deleted by its relevant users.

Blogs are interactive sites, which provide the conversation between the web users and content managers. They are responsible for providing the general information regarding any content. A typical blog combines the text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to the topic. The ability of readers to leave comments in an interactive format plays an important contribution to the popularity of many blogs. Most blogs target a specific audience and usually focuses on certain things that have great effect to the society or help people in general. According to the article, “How can we measure the influence of the Blogosphere?” by Kathy E. Gill., she states “Bloggers write about topics that matter to them; their audience may be large or small. Some blogs are single- person operations (one to many); others have a community of authors (many to many). They foster community and conversation by allowing readers to comment on postings, thus becoming an author in turn.” This shows that bloggers try to engage and grasp people attention that pertain to their view of interest. Blogging has become a phenomenon like social networks and have had huge impact on mass media and the share of information. According to Kathy E. Gill, she states “Unlike newspapers or television news, blogging is not capital-intensive; there is no centralized registry, no editorial oversight. All a writer needs is access to a computer (free at public libraries). The only cost is time, as some hosting services are free.” This shows that blogs are actually more prominent in sharing thoughtful information, it’s an induvial actual insight and thoughts, where one can actually read and dissect and comment their thoughts as well in a very free minded environment.

However, Wiki is pretty similar to blogs but have quite more difference in the way contents are produced. Wiki has some specific characteristics on how it works, such as, it invites all users to edit any page or to create new pages within the wiki website. Wikis requires more of a team collaboration, they are useful in group projects, presentations, and to generate ideas, etc. Wikis typically involve the visitor in an ongoing process of creation and collaboration which constantly changes. Wiki’s have become very popular in schools, companies, groups, etc, to help their team collaborate and share ideas. According to the article, “ Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales on making the most of company wikis” by Gardiner Morse, he states “Wikis harness the wisdom of crowds, serving as virtual commons where participants can wrestle over ideas and information until something approaching consensus—or the truth— emerges. The online encyclopedia Wikipedia is certainly the best known wiki, but it is hardly alone. Thousands of organizations, from Microsoft to the FBI, use wikis to aggregate the knowledge of their far-flung employees, creating a place for them to electronically converge and collaborate on everything from planning meetings and documenting best practices to brainstorming about new products and processes.” This shows that wikis are very useful and a great way to help bring your team together to collaborate and bring their brains together using a virtual way of sharing info, which also makes it more engaging and gives the users more creativity.

References:

1. Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales on making the most of company wikis. A Conversation with Jimmy Wales by Gardiner Morse. Harvard Business Review, April 2008.Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales on making the most of company wikis.pdf 
2. How Can We Measure the Influence of the Blogosphere? by Kathy E. Gill. Workshop on the Weblogging Ecosystem, May 2004. available