Blogs vs. Wikis

In our new world, one of the most important things to us is being able to communicate information to each other and come together in a fashionable way. Our technical convergences have taken us very far over the past years. Many forms of new media such as social platforms and blogs allows us to do so. A blog is a site or page that is updated usually in a timely period, only run by one person or group, and also not usually written in the most conventional styles. Although others are not able to edit posts, blog are interactive because it gives viewers the chance to leave comments and feedback. When multiple people see these comments, it gives the opportunity for collaboration to start and sharing knowledge on similar subjects while doing so.  One great example of this was actually in New York about a decade ago when blogs were becoming more popular. According to, “Brooklyn Blog Helps Lead to Drug Raid” a New York time article, a blog was started because of worried neighbors who had a problem and needed more collaboration to get it solved. A blog was started about narcotics being dealt around Brooklyn, with lots of comments and feedback, there eventually became a raid with numerous arrests because of this blog post.

Wiki has similar traits to blogs, but it has more of a community style. In comparison, wiki allows multiple users to create, edit, and comment on post at their own ease. Blogs are restricted to one person creating and editing, so many times the information from these blogs might be a little more trusted than what is coming from a wiki which has more of an open environment. The ability for multiple people being able to edit and create wiki’s it always leads to some information being misleading or just false being of anyone being able to add anything. Over the years there has been many efforts to try to make the information of wiki more trustworthy. According to a New York Times article, “Wikipedia to Limit Changes to Articles on People,” there will be different efforts, such as monitoring of edits for this to be executed.

One new use of wikis that I think would be very useful is, making a wiki for college classes. Doing this student would be able to add different notes and important information, that way if you are confused on anytime topic in class the professor does not have to be the first option. This would very affective because a lot of times, students are more comfortable communicating with themselves than the professor.

 Citations

Cohen, Noam. “Wikipedia to Limit Changes to Articles on People.” The New York Times, The

New York Times, 24 Aug. 2009,

www.nytimes.com/2009/08/25/technology/internet/25wikipedia.html?_r=1.

Wilson, Michael. “Brooklyn Blog Helps Lead to Drug Raid.” The New York Times, The New

York Times, 26 June 2008, www.nytimes.com/2008/06/26/nyregion/26bayridge.html.