Blogs vs. Wikis

Blogs are personalized in the sense that a blogger (an individual who writes an online journal) (a.k.a. publisher) writes about his or her own thoughts using words or visuals (photos, videos).  A blogger can select whether to make his or her blog open to the public for anyone to read or to make it private for a selected few people to read.  In addition, viewers of a blog may comment on entries written by the blogger.  However, viewers may not post entries on a blog unless it belongs to them.  The layout of a blog can also be personalized and designed by the blogger by utilizing different colors, images, and coding for the blog.  Blog entries are also typically written in chronological order from the most recent entry to the oldest entry with time-stamps.  Kathy E. Gill's article, "How can we measure the influence of the blogosphere?" discusses the characteristics of blogs in addition to the influence and effect that it has on politics and the mass media.

Wikis are public websites that anyone may create, access, and edit.  It uses simplified markup language to create and edit.  Wikis may be used to search for information about something or as a collaborative work.  It is also like a online community portal and information database.  Wikis are also easy to use and edit.  Whenever someone edits a Wiki site, the history of edits is available for view on the Wiki.

Both blogs have become integrated into today's networked world because individuals like to express their thoughts and ideas through blogs, which other people may read.  Wikis have become integrated into today's networked world too because schools use Wikis in the school setting (for example:  CIS 3810 online class at Baruch College) and the government uses Wikis too as it is mentioned in the Wikipedia article about Wiki.

Blogs can be used for collaboration by encouraging individuals with similar interests to form a "community", in which there may be multiple bloggers on one web blog site.

Wikis can be used to update the status of a project.  i.e.,  If there are 10 phases to a project, there can be updates about each phase and information provided about each phase.  This Wiki update information can then be shared with other people who are working on the project to discuss what has been done and what needs to be done as well as progress.  I think Wikis can also be used like dictionaries to show the definitions of words as well as thesaurus (all on one page), which would be easier than flipping through a hard copy of a dictionary to find out dictionary definitions and thesauruses.