Compare and contrast blogs and wikis
Wikis are either Web sites that are accessible by any Internet user or an Intranet application that is used within a single company. The main and most important characteristic of a wiki is collaboration. It attracts and encourages people with related interests to collaborate in a single process while creating and editing a page on a certain topic. Ward Cunningham and co-author Bo Leuf, in their book The Wiki Way: Quick Collaboration on the Web, described a wiki as "not a carefully crafted site for casual visitors. Instead, it seeks to involve the visitor in an ongoing process of creation and collaboration that constantly changes the Web site landscape."
In order to edit a wiki page, a simple markup language must be used. As Ward Cunningham and Bo Leuf mentioned "A wiki is essentially a database for creating, browsing, and searching through information. A wiki allows for non-linear, evolving, complex and networked text, argument and interaction."
Many wikis do not require their users to create an account and allow them to alter pages without any reviews before modification are accepted.
A wiki can be compared to a database, some kind of an information storage that is constantly updated and edited by not only its creator but its reader as well.
Ezra Goodnoe in his article How to use wikis for businesses said that "Wikis are structurally capable of handling conversation, but it is not their forte; instead, wikis excel at collaboration. They are intended to maintain a series of unique documents as their content evolves and to provide an organic means of organizing that information. You're looking for an exchange of views. Wikis are not the best tool for airing opinions or carrying on conversations. If that's your primary goal, use a blog instead."
Blogs, in their turn, were derived from traditional journalism. There are used not only by professional journalists who publish their articles on a blog page but also regular Internet Browsers who are welcome to comment on the articles and provide their feedbacks. Kathy E. Gill in her article How can we measure the influence of Blogosphere describes blogs as "participatory journalism that embraces the expended two way communication between established media and reader, allowing readers interact wit journalists and new organizations." Unlike wikis there is no editorial over site in blogs. Readers are not able to edit articles published on blog pages but they can comment on them, participate in conversations and discussions, and express their opinion.
Convergence is very important in today's networked world. It made communication much faster and more efficient. Instead of using multiple technologies worldwide corporations make and process their complicated transactions with the help of a single device. Convergence made telecommunication possible as well; long distance, live conferences and meetings became possible in today`s business world. Such applications as wikis are widely used by many companies which helps them to work on projects more efficiently.
Blogs can be used for collaboration as well. Having strong influence on politics, blogs can be used
in different campaigns which usually need teamwork and collaboration.
Wikis can be widely used for advertisement where a single product is recommended by different users. Those who have used the product might update and edit the already - existing description of it.
References:
1. How Can We Measure the Influence of the Blogosphere? by Kathy E. Gill. Workshop on the Weblogging Ecosystem, May 2004. available from:http://faculty.washington.edu/kegill/pub/www2004_blogosphere_gill.pdf
2. "How to Use Wikis for Business," by Ezra Goodnoe, Information Week, August 8, 2005, http://www.informationweek.com/news/management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=167600331
3.Wikipedia on Wikis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki
