Blog V Wiki

Both blogs and wikis have been an important way of passing information to one another. Due to technological advancements, especially the internet, we now are able to post blogs and wiki pages to share information. Both have their advantages and drawbacks, but they mainly help more than they hurt.

A blog is a way an individual can periodically post new information, usually it is done in a conversational setting and very easy to maintain. Some huge blog websites are Tumblr, a huge hit in the past but not so much now. These blogs allow the audience to view the individuals blog post and comment their own opinions on it. Some huge bloggers may even have millions of followers that view their blog each day. It is important to realize that these blogs can have huge impacts to the audience. In the "Brooklyn Blog Helps Lead to Drug Raid" article, a coffee shop owner named Katherine Khatari says, “People don’t like to fight alone. There’s strength in numbers, you know? There’s more of us than them.” She points out a great benefit of blogs; with more people/viewers, it can impact society, in this case a drug bust. Because people blogged about disturbances in the neighborhood, the police got involved.

Similar to blogs, are wikis. Wiki allows access to the general public to an open page on a certain topic that can constantly be updated for new or upcoming information. Here you can see why there is an issue with wikis; anyone can update a wiki page, even an individual who has no credibility. Because of this freedom that wiki has, topics on controversial issues can lead to constant deleting and editing one of the wiki pages. "Early adopters say corporate wikis work best when they're focused narrowly on a specific project or collection of information, as well as on a specific group of users." While wiki isn't the best place to look for debatable issues, narrow and more specific topics are for sure.

Personally, I use blogs to see peoples opinion on an issue or topic, like what gift would be a perfect mother's day present. But when searching for topics to get a general sense for, I tend to use wiki. Both blogs and wikis have their advantages as mentioned above.