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.