Blog v Wiki

Blogs and wikis are both new media platforms, allowing users to post information, and share with others on the Internet. Given that new media have the characteristics of the 5’Cs – communication, collaboration, community, creativity, and convergence – blogs and wikis share those common qualities as well. However, due to the different ways these two platforms in organizing, searching, and presenting information, they have distinct use cases as well. Blogs are opinions and thoughts written by one individual or a small group, which may be subjective, while wikis are authored by a larger group through collaboration and collective thinking, with information edited for content and consistency, and it’s usually more subjective.

Blogs center on the author and are typically organized in reverse chronological order. Since the author is usually one person or a small group, he/she can express his ideas promote his agendas freely. Since it is more like a journal reflecting a person’s thoughts, the blog is often written through the lens of the individual, and therefore, views are subjective. The nature of the blogs also encourage collaboration, because it facilitates feedback through comments. As mentioned blogs share many characteristics of the 5’C, but perhaps the most illustrative one is convergence. Blogs may appear in various forms of old media, such as print journals in magazines, personal diaries, etc. Technology has enabled the transformation and “converged” the traditional platforms into online blogs that encourage sharing and feedback. There was also convergence of users. In the article, Wal-Mart Tastemakers Write Unfiltered Blog, Wal-Mart’s buyers often writes reviews about the products from the suppliers on the company’s blog - Check Out. The blogs provide honest, uncensored feedback to the supplier. In that sense, Wal-Mart’s buyers and shoppers have converged because they are both providing product reviews to help inform others. 

On the other hand, wikis focus on the content, and are often navigable by subjects and searchable. The primary purpose of wiki is to serve as a collection of documents centered on one or more subject areas. Wikis are editable by others, as it emphasize on group contribution. Since wikis often require consensus among the contributors, the content is more often objective. Wikipedia is perhaps the most prominent wiki, since it offers an encyclopedia of all subject matters, and is entirely contributed the user community. In his article, What Motivates Wikipedians?, Oded Nov argued that since contribution is an entirely volunteering activity, their motivation is often based on fun, enhancement, as well as ideological and career-enhancing objectives. Wiki usage is wide and broad. According the article, How to Use Wikis for Business published by InformationWeeks, wiki is a centralized document management software that allows sharing of content and collaboration with other colleagues. Other uses of wiki include group collaboration projects, authoring simple websites, and creating knowledge base of articles. Perhaps a new approach to use wiki which we haven’t used in the past is around planning and organizing events, since it follows the same general concept of collaboration and establishing user community.

In short, blogs and wikis are both new media tools that allow ease of sharing and collaborating, but each with its own usages. Blogs are created by one individual or a small group and may be more opinionated. Wikis are contributed by a community of users and the views are more neutral and may be used in more professional settings.

Barbaro, Michael. “Wal-Mart Tastemakers Write Unfiltered Blog.” The New York Times, 2 Mar. 2008, www.nytimes.com/2008/03/03/business/03walmart.html.

 “How To Use Wikis For Business.” InformationWeek, http://www.informationweek.com/how-to-use-wikis-for-business/d/d-id/1034971.

Nov, Oded. “What Motivates Wikipedians?” ACM, 1 Nov. 2007, http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2007/11/5534-what-motivates-wikipedians/abstract.