BLOG V WIKI

In today's swiftly progressing media, blogs and wikis are essential in providing information to people everywhere who use the internet. The main difference between blogs and wikis is that a blog is written similarly to a journal, making it more personal. They consist more of opinions on facts compared to wikis. Only the author of the post is allowed to edit the post; others are only able to comment. On the other hand, wikis consist of information posted by multiple users because it’s open to the general public giving everyone the ability to edit and contribute to the page. However, wikis can’t always be trusted because people can also publish information anonymously without having any credibility. According to “How to Use Wikis For Business”, “thousands of people police the site (or at least those areas in which they have expertise), fact-checking and editing as necessary, so the quality of the content generally remains high.” Even so, the main goal of both blogs and wikis are to share information and knowledge with others.

People coming together through media has definitely impacted our world today in a positive light. One example was given in “Brooklyn Blog Helps Lead to Drug Raid”, where a community shared their experiences with suspicious drug activity through a blog, leading to a drug raid by the police; “peering turned to blogging, and blogging turned to action.” Without these opportunities for people to stay connected, a vast amount of information would go undiscovered.

A new way people can use wikis is maybe creating collaborative study guides for students studying similar subjects.

"How to Use Wikis for Business," by Ezra Goodnoe, Information Week, August 8, 2005, http://www.informationweek.com/news/management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=167600331

“Brooklyn Blog Helps Lead to Drug Raid,” By MICHAEL WILSON, The New York Times, June 26, 2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/26/nyregion/26bayridge.html