Blogs vs. Wikis

I believed wikis has many advantages over blogs. First of all, wikis combines the knowledge of many different people as opposed to blog which is mostly written by one person. Thus, the viewpoints on wikis can be more relevant as it combines many writers' opinions. Many people would worry about the credibility of posts on wikis. But most of the time, posts on wikis needed to be sited to ensure the accuracy of the sources so this should not be a great concern. Blogs is only limited to one person's knowledge, thus, might not give a fair discussion, but with an open collaboration of thoughts on wikis, we can review them and even give a piece of our own mind by adding or editing contents. Blogs tend to be more personal whereas wikis is more open minded. For blogs, we can only participate by commenting on one's posts. Blogging can be use for many purpose; for personal, business or pleasure. In the article "Wal-Mart Tastemakers Write a Blunt and Unfiltered Blog," Walmart's staff is using blog as a strategy for their business. They want to create a closer connection with their buyers through blogging. Both blogs and wikis are great for educational purposes because they provide rooms for discussions. I can't really said which one is better because it really depends on how one wants to use it. For example, as mentioned in the article "Wikie While Your Work/More on How to Build Your Own Wikipedia CIO," the VP of IT uses wikis to organized ideas of their project all in one place. He wants everyone to participate and contribute their own knowledge, so he decided to use wiki as a source for his colleagues to edit and comments. If one is looking for a way to reflect their own opinion and understanding, it is better to use blogs. Blogs are used for collaboration through commenting on posts as well as providing links to related sites, blogs and even photos. Blogs can be use among different people to quickly share information or to provide new guidance. While on the other hand, if one is working on a group project in need of different people's ideas or to plan events, wikis would be a better source.

Convergence is important in today's networked world especially in the business world. Convergence helps one easily transfer different forms of data such as audio, video, and texts through a wide variety of technologies. What makes convergence important is it helps expands communications and could reduce costs. For example, in today's society, the board of directors of some large firms have their meetings through video conference. This saves time and can settle some major decisions if one of the directors is on vacation, they can still get their vote through the use of convergence. The expansion of access to communication service to different part of the world is one of the factors making convergence significant in today's networked world. It is like international platforms that create effective participation and new opportunities for development as well as meeting the needs of many different people.

Wikis are mainly use as a collective knowledge that is seen use on education and even business. I think it will be great to create a wiki that collects all business and categorized them just like yellow pages. In one way, it helps consumers like us to find business near us and search for service we needed easily. Secondly, business can advertise their company for free. Of course, I think these wikis needed restrict access so that not everyone can alter the information to provide accuracy. But overall, I think using wiki as a tool for business collaboration will help both the consumers and the companies. As stated in the article, "How to Use Wikis for Business," wiki is the "simplest online database" that may "soon rule the knowledge management roost." Since wiki will be often use for business, it will be a great idea to create a directory of businesses categorized by location and services and let consumers write reviews about the companies on wikis.