Blogs Vs. Wikis

Two of the most important ways of communications and collaborations of web 2.0 are blogs and wikis. Each have their benefits and drawbacks in today's system of interactions between organizations or people in general.

Web logs, most generally called blogs are most often simple online diaries (Rob Edmonds: Up from the Grassroots) that are usually created by one or a small group of people who collaborate, posting about a specific subject. Each post is in reverse chronological order meaning that the newest post appears first and people can leave comment. However only the blog creator(s) can edit the blog. Blogs are very easy to create. Any regular person can blog about basically anything or anybody. No need to  be an expert. That is probably why they are so popular and there are so many blogs about every single thing you can think about. Usually visitors can leave comments, returning as often as the blog interest them. To me blogs are some kind of global conversations which are updated as often as there is a need. One of the major drawbacks of blogs (compared to wikis any way) is the inability of more than one person to contribute to a single post, no history of revision on a single post. Also, there can be a very negative connotation to it when people use it for harmful purposes.

Wikis are essentially Web pages that anyone — or at least anyone with permission — can create or edit. In Up from the Grassroots, Rob Edmond tell us that  they provide useful knowledge and information for companies and are simple way for workers to collaborate on documents and track changes.  Essentially, wikis are web pages that visitors can quickly edit. Wikipedia.org defines a wiki as "a website which allows its users to add, modify, or delete its content via a web browser usually using a simplified markup language or a rich-text editor." Wiki's can be updated as often as necessary when there are new information about the subject or the information needs to be updated or corrected. The main benefit of wikis are the easy collaboration and sharing of resources which make them so convenient for organizations. Anybody or limited group of approved users can make the changes which make it easy to track for an organization who can allow different  permission for different users. Wikis harness the wisdom of crowds, serving as virtual commons where participants can wrestle over ideas and information until something approaching consensus—or the truth—emerges" says Gardiner Morse on A Conversation with Jimmy Wales which sums it all.

What makes wikis somehow more interesting than bogs for me is that you can find everything in on document while you have to go through the comments on the blogs which makes it unorganized. Content on blogs can be dispersed and all over the place and  inconclusive.