Wikis vs. Blogs

While Blogs and Wikis have differences between them, they also have many features in common. Similarities such as they both present easy web publication and lightweight content supervision, also can be set up for free by anyone who’s willing and in general provide spaces for comments on each page or post, through talk, discussion pages and comment features. In both cases, new posts or pages and modifications appear on the web immediately, and they both allow the writer to preview changes.

On the contrary, a blog consists mostly of multiple essays presented in reverse sequential order; one that is last written is first read. That's the heart of a blog. A blog normally has authors and readers and Blog posts are not open to direct editing by readers. When they do, normally by the author himself, earlier versions are not retained.

A wiki is a collection of web pages typically designed to enable anyone who accesses it to contribute or modify the content. That's the heart of a wiki: ease of multiple contributions and editing, whether by all or specific users. A wiki typically has a much broader range of contributors (authors and editors) than a blog, and that range frequently includes all readers or at least all who choose to register. Wiki pages are frequently edited, and wikis do retain previous histories for each page. It also lets writers identify needed pages by linking to them even when they don't yet exist. One common question for Wiki is what if someone creates disinformation or vandalism? As Noam Cohen stated in his article, "An Internal Wiki That’s Not Classified",
" Mr. Johnson of the State Department’s Office of eDiplomacy in Washington, who recently gave a talk about Diplopedia at Wikipedia’s annual conference in Egypt, was asked — a not-infrequent question when the topic of wikis comes up. He pointed out that unlike Wikipedia, Diplopedia does not allow anonymous contributors, so bad actors could be tracked down. He then observed, “There are plenty of ways to commit career suicide; wikis are just the newest one.'"

The importance of convergence in today's networked world is significant. Considering that anyone has the access to all kinds of information on the internet, it can definitely cause an overload of information (much like the BING commercials, but not as obvious!) By Wikis & Blogs, which is a mean of converging, we could definitely communicate in a more efficient manner and work with a more strict time constraint.

Although, wikis seem to be more at advantage for collaboration, blogs can similarly be used for the same purpose. Though, the readers do not have the opportunity to contribute to the page, they are allowed to collaborate by leaving comments, or share ideas and thoughts on the articles posted.