Blogs and wikis allow people to share information. However, blogs are individualized whereas wikis are collaborative. A blog allows anyone to write about his or her personal news and publish it so that anyone can read and comment on it. It allowed everyone to become a reporter. A wiki allows people to collaborate and store information in a central location. The information can be altered by anyone at anytime.
Blogs are not only for venting about one’s personal life. They can be used to motivate people into action. In Brooklyn a blog united a community to get rid of drugs in their neighborhood. It started with one person voicing his complaint, which was then quickly followed by other concerned citizens. A bloggers united and went to the community board and the authorities that then raided the drug dealer’s homes. What was truly amazing was that the bloggers wrote about the raid in real-time. Businesses are also using blogs to get feedback about their products and services from both customers and employees.
Wikis allows a group to store and share related information in a central location. One flaw of a wki is that the information can be altered by anyone at anytime which could lead to wiki vandalism. The Los Angeles Times created a wiki, to discuss the war in Iran, which was vandalized by the posting of inappropriate content by anonymous users. One was to avoid inappropriate content from being posted to a wiki is to now allow anonymous updates. This is what the State department did for their Diplopedia wiki. The Diplopedia is used to store biographical information about political and business leaders. Anyone is allowed to update the information on the wiki as long as they login. Each time a change is made the userid of the person who makes the change is recorded. This way it’s easy to track who made what changes. People tend to be more professional once they know they can be held accountable for their actions.
Overall blogs and wikis enable us to share information and collaborate in real time from anywhere in the world. This sharing of information and collaboration knows no boundaries.
References:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN2I1pWXjXI
http://www.informationweek.com/news/global-cio/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=167600331
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/04/business/media/04link.html
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