Blogs vs. Wikis

Blogs

Blog is form as journalism, which is like “our day book, our collective diary, which records our common life” said by James W. Carey. It is place where a blogger can post his or her thought or feeling, or sharing some articles or news. Which other people can view it and leave their comment on it. According to (Kathy E. Gill 2004), primary characteristics of a blog include: 1. Reverse chronological journaling (format) – which is every journal that blogger post will be regulate by time. The latest post will be appears on the bottom, and the earliest post will be appears on the top. 2. Regular, date-stamped entries (timeliness) – which is every post will shows exact date and time next to it, and those posts are regulate by time. 3. Links to related news articles, documents, blog entries within each entry (attribution) – which is in a blog, blogger can post his or her journal, and also can links some other people’s work in the blog. 4. Archived entries (old content remains accessible) – which is bloggers can save their old work. 5. Links to related blogs (blogrolling) – which is one blogger and links to other people’s blog in order to view or leave comment. 

Wikis

Wiki is “a type of website that allows users to add, remove, or otherwise edit and change all content very quickly and easily, sometimes without the need for registration.” (Rob Edmonds 2006) Wiki can be edit by many different people. People can work together by update their information in same topic. The system also allows users to link information, video and picture from other resources. Many organizations are also using Wiki in their daily operation. It provides an “opportunity for organizations to improve collaborative work and knowledge sharing.” (Rob Edmonds 2006) For example employees can add any idea or strategy on wiki, at the same time people can also view other people’s works. It can be a good place for a company to gather most information from different people.

Blogs and Wikis

Blogs and Wikis both are operate online. They are easy to create, and function. They can view by public, and allow people to leave their comments (for blog) or edit more information (for wiki) on their pages. They both can link other people’s resource to their own page, such as pictures and videos. They both can be another way of communication.

Convergence in today's networked world.

Convergence means that a media can be form by combining different functions together into one, such as from old media - journalism into new media - blogs. Blogs have same function as journalism which can record daily activities and journals. But it can post and review by people in any place with internet and anytime. Convergence in today’s networked world provide more convenient to people and users can update information more quickly through network.

How can blogs be used for collaboration?

Blogs are easy to create, and everybody can create a blog account. The main function of a blog is a blogger can make a post on his or her account and allow other people to view it and leave comments. Here is one of real example from my personal experience about blog. Last semester, I took an English class and one of main tool for that class is blog. During the semester, we posted our thought and feeling about each story that we read. We also can link other sources to support our idea. After posting, we shared our posts by viewing other people’s works, and leave comments on each other’s blog. In this case, discuss of story in class is one way, but blog can be another way of discussion by sharing thought and feeling about the story from many people.

Can you think of a new use for a wiki that has not been done yet?
Wiki is also a tool that people can edit information and share information. However, one of big problem about Wiki is that it is most of time it was written by non-professional people and easy for people to edit. So the information on Wiki might not be true and trustable. That is why when we doing research, our professors will always said that “do not use information from Wikipedia.” If writers can edit information base on academic research, and cite those articles or research in their writing, then the information will become more trustable.

Citation:
How Can We Measure the Influence of the Blogosphere? by Kathy E. Gill. Workshop on the Weblogging Ecosystem, May 2004.

Wikis at work: Up from the grassroots by Rob Edmonds E.learning Age; Oct 2006; p. 14-16

Description of research topic

Social Networking: A purposeful loss of privacy

Nowadays, the communication functions of electronic media are very popular in our society. Many people find out that social networking become necessary for their lives, such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and so on. Because of huge improvement of technology, people are getting much easier to get online, and create an account for themselves. In my term project, I will list out few different types of social networking, maybe I will use examples that I list above: Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. I will talk how these social networking function and what are positive positives effects and negative effects about it. Positive effects could be easy to use, improve communication, share information with friends, convenience and so on. Negative effects could be loss of privacy- (I will focus more on it because loss of privacy can cause many different harm to people including personal life, and job), inappropriate use, reduce face-to-face communication and so on. I will also introduce different group of people using social networking, such as people, companies, and clubs. I decide to use some scholar articles and presses to support my points.

Describe new media

In order to consider as a New Media technology, it must contains five characteristics. They are “communication”, “collaboration”, “community”, “creativity”, and “convergence” (Linda Weiser Friedman and Hershey H. Friedman 2008). “Communication” means that the technology that can communicate to one each other, such as blog, which you can post information on your own blog or leave comment on other’s blog. “Collaboration” means that the technology can use work together by many people, such as wiki which many people can work on the same topic together and edit it or change it. “Community” means that the technology is relative to society, such as Facebook and Myspace. “Creativity” means that the technology is well creative, which we all know that media technology changes so rapidly from old to new, such as Flickr which you can upload your own pictures, write description, edit or remove easily . “Convergence” means that the technology combines with different functions into new one, such as from old media (book) into new media (Ebook).

Examples of New Media technologies are Blogs, Wikis, Social networking such as Myspace, Facebook, twitter, Virtual worlds such as SecondLife, Video clips such as YouTube and Social bookmarking. As I point out above New Media must includes five characteristics. New Medias are connecting with Internet and digital devices which provides much more convenience for people and more effectively and efficiently than Old Media.

Examples of Old Media are books, newspapers, magazines, journalism, radio and television. They are hard to move around and hard to update, edit or remove information. Old Media is less convenience, effectively and efficiently than New Media and it has limit of five characteristics that list above.

Cite:
Friedman, Linda Weiser and Friedman, Hershey H., The New Media Technologies: Overview and Research Framework (April 2008). Available at SSRN.