Blog v Wiki

The internet recently just surfaced to the commercial world not long ago. One thing that the internet provided us, is many new ways to communicate with one another. Some of they are blogs and wikis.  Blogs and Wikis are a new type of medium where we can express or share our thoughts and resources. They didn't exist couple decades ago, so they are still constantly evolving and becoming more innovated with their features. Even though they look like they are "identical twins" platforms, they are actually different in many ways. 

First off, I will start with blogs. Blogs are a way for a journalist or even an ordinary person to write what's on their mind. Blogs are usually used as a diary or journal for some people while some people use it for commercial purposes such as providing music news and other source of outlets. Blogs can also lead to collaboration that you did never expect. For instance the New York Times article "Brooklyn Blog Helps Lead to Drug Raid" written by Michael Wilson, talked about how a Brooklyn neighborhood collaborated with each other through blogs. Taken from the article, "But peering turned to blogging, and blogging turned to action, as neighbors started filing complaints with the 68th Precinct station house and attending Community Board 10 meetings and generally making noise until a narcotics investigation began, leading to the arrests.", it made the bloggers more aware of the problem within their own community. Without these blogs or a way of communicating with the whole neighborhood, there would of never be drug raid on their own turfs. Blogging provide a way for bloggers to communicate with one another without physically getting in contact with one another. Blogs don't necessarily don't need to be a person's own journal/diary, sometimes it could be a blog about something they want to change. 

Wikis in the other hand, are meant to share information. Wikis originated from the encyclopedia. While encyclopedias are only written by the authors that collaborated on the book and stay in that format/edition for a while, wikis are always constantly getting updated. People from all over the world collaborate and share their information on wikis, they can edit, add, change, or delete things from wiki. It's more of an open-space environment where anyone can contribute to the article/topic. Though, while Wikipedia has a very bad reputation in the education world, many people still uses it. The news article "How To Use Wikis for Business" written by Ezra Goodnoe, talks about how wikis can actually be beneficially for businesses. Quoting from the article, "Thousands of people police the site, fact-checking and editing as necessary, so the quality of the content generally remains high." even though some professors or teachers complain how unreliable WIkipedia is, there are many people who volunteer their own free time to police their own professional fields/topics. So the reliability of most wikis are trustable. A new use for wiki would be collaborating on hosting a new event or making a change in the world such as the Occupy Wall Street movement. 

In conclusion, blogs are mainly used to post their own personal entries while Wikis are for sharing information. Blogs and Wikis are a great way for people to communicate coming from all over the world. Not only that they are able to communicate or share their expertise, they are also able to collaborate on things that they care about. Such as the neighborhood collaborating on a drug raid or people from all the over sharing information on a particular topic. Should hop on the bandwagon if you like to share information to the world or want to do some collaboration writing.