Blogs vs. Wikis

Compare and contrast blogs and wikis
The biggest difference between blogs and wikis is the ownership of contents. Writers own the contents that they wrote in their blogs. The contents have kind of copy right style encrypted when writers post it up, because writer’s name always follows the contents. However, in wikis, writers don’t own the contents they write, since everyone who has access to internet has the right to edit the contents. It’s more likely that the contents are belonged to Wikipedia, and writers are just volunteers that contribute their ideas and knowledge to this website.

The second difference is the way people do when they agree or not agree with the contents on blogs and wikis. When people disagree with the writers in blogs, viewers will comments beneath the contents. In other way, people will edit the contents in Wikipedia directly.

The third difference is wikis have informational contents, while blogs have journalism likely contents. According Gerry, blogs is tool for people to write every thing that happened on the writers or thoughts about what happened globally. Further, people use wikis when they need to obtain some information rather than ideas to do something.

One similarity I found between blogs and wikis is people must do them online. These two ways to share information and ideas with people are found when more and more people get the accesses to Internet. This online style makes people that are able to respond to what people writes quickly and freely. Also, this style also helps people to share information with a greater range of people rather than a small area around the writers.

Comment on the importance of convergence in today's networked world
The emerging of new media has become a main stream in today’s networked world. This main stream creates a converging point for many different kinds of businesses and becomes the center of a large web of networking. It’s really important to have this convergence in the world because it connects people here by writing journals and comments and reduce the obstacles for people to get contact with each others. In addition, people are depends on these new media now to do every thing. It’s hard for people to give up I think.

How can blogs be used for collaboration?
All the blogging websites are having a similar feature that is people can comment on writers’ articles. Commenting becomes a tool for people to collaborate with each other. When an article is posted online, all the people who have access to Internet will have a chance to read and comment on the contents. In other way, the writer of this article can reply or comment on readers’ comments. Further, readers can comment on other readers’ comment also. In this way, people have a communication with others. Sometimes, the communication is one-to-many, many-to-one or many-to-many. This is how blogs is work for collaboration.

Can you think of a new use for a wiki that has not been done yet?
I think wiki can be used for people to do group projects. Usually, college students will get group projects that need a lot of information from many different sites. However, they may not have the time to gather together and discus about it. At this time, after assigning of different jobs, they can start to post information they get to wiki, and people can revised it anytime when they feel the information is wrong. In this way, project can be done without wasting time to gather people together.

Citation:
Mellissa Gerry, Celebrity Blogs: The Impact of New Media, March 31, 2006, Retrieved on September 27, 2010, http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/26280/celebrity_blogs_the_impact_of_new_media.html