Blogs
A blog is an online website in which it is one person's opinion on anything he wants to comment on. It can be about recent news, his different interests, or even about his local community. The one person can update this blog, and it is at his/her pace. You can call a blog an online public diary which other people can post their reactions to your blog post in the form of comments. Although blogging seems great, there are those who post negative comments about other people reveal in an NY Times Op-ed article "Stung by the Perfect Sting". In the Op-ed it stated "Liskula Cohen, a 37-year-old model and Australian Vogue cover girl, was surprised to find herself winning a “Skankiest in NYC” award from an anonymous blogger."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/26/opinion/26dowd.html?_r=1
Wikis
Wikis are a form of an online database which content is user/community generated. Wikis actually started out as an open source project and now runs purely on donations. Unlike blogs, wikis can be updated often by many different users. Although this may increase the rate at which it is updated, it can also mean that information is incorrect as well. Like the blog, it is open to the public. Wikipedia is not the only place that have wikis, some websites create their own wikis which only have information they wish to provide, maybe about their company or a genre their site follows.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki
Wikis at work: Up from the grassroots by Rob Edmonds E.learning Age; Oct 2006; p. 14
Convergence and Collaboration
Today everyone expects things to get done fast and efficient. The convergence of old + new media does just that. Wikis make information accessible and easy to find instead of having to search through books, it has become a one stop shop of information which saves people time. Information is often posted right after reported on many blogs and gets the community involved in sharing their opinions on said topic,issue, or news.
New uses of Wikis
I cannot think of a new use for wikis at the moment but I did like the idea that one site did. This site is called www.Teamliquid.net and they are a e-sport dedicated website, specializing in starcraft(an RTS). They created their own database of information people new to this area can access and look up information. They call their database a Liquipedia ( http://wiki.teamliquid.net/ ).
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