Blogs vs. Wikis

What is the difference between a blog and a wiki? Well, a blog consists primarily of multiple essays or excerpts presented in chronological order, last written, first read. A blog is usually personal, with little collaboration, and the posting is owned by the poster. A wiki is a collection of web pages designed to enable anyone who accesses it to contribute or modify the content. A wiki can be personal, but it is open to collaboration. A blog is not open to direct editing by the readers, and if it is edited by the author, earlier versions are not retained like in the wiki. A blog has archives by date and possible category, and a wiki rarely has archives. There is a much broader range of contributors (authors, editors, researchers) that share in the wiki, then in a blog. Wiki pages almost always appear separately, not in a stream, and in a blog, each passage is written one after the other, in a stream. There are several other differences between blogs and wikis as well.

I feel that blogs are already somewhat used for collaboration because people can comment on what the blogger contributes to their page, and others can view those comments. However, if society wanted blogs to be a more informative type of collaboration, we can make blogs more open to the public like the wiki, where people can contribute their ideas to the blog topic, instead of just have a commentary page. They can even put up external links on the blog where it can bring the reader to a poll whether they agree or not with the blogger and what they feel can be useful information to the blog topic. This can make it a little bit more collaborative because people aren't just commenting, but having their own links to share their ideas.

In society now, there are always new products being made, places to see, and things to do. A wiki could also be used as a place where people can find out new things to do and/or how to go about doing it. For example, a vacation spot. A family wants to find a new place to go but doesn't know much about it. They can go on the wiki, and see what other people have to say about it and things to do and places to go at that specific vacation spot. It can even have links to nice hotels or restaurants for the people to plan their trip. This way instead of searching site after site on places to go, you have it all in one on the wiki.

The importance of convergence in today's networked world is because it is a new concept that is growing day by day, and will continue to grow in the future by combining and incorporating existing media forms. Eventually, it can create a whole new media.


Cited Articles: Elaine Plybon. "Blogs and Wikis in the Classroom" (2008)