Blog VS Wiki

Differences of blogs and wikis

Blogs: a form of online journal by individual or corporation.

Wikis:  a collaborative website for individual or corporation.

Blogs: It shows online diaries. According to Melissa Gerry, “people are able to write about topics that interest them and comment freely on what is going on in their lives and in the world around them.” (Melissa Gerry,2006)

Wikis: It shows sharing on knowledge and information which is useful for research.

Blogs: It is written by one author. The visitors can post comments.

Wikis: It can be written and edited by multiple authors.

Blogs: updated slowly by one author’s post.

Wikis: updated fast by the changes from multiple authors. According to Ezra Goodnoe, “Content in a wiki can be updated without any real lag, without any real administrative effort, and without the need for distribution — users/contributors (with wikis, they're one and the same) simply visit and update a common Web site.”( Ezra Goodnoe,2005)

Blogs: the post is from one’s view point.

Wikis: the post is from multiple view points from different users.

Similarities between blogs and wikis

Both of them enable written discussion and online communication.

Both are open to the public.

Both are easy to set up by obtaining username and password.

Both can be used for classroom website.

Both can post text, pictures, and links.

Their layouts can be designed by users.

Both are free to use and access.

Both can be showed in different languages.

Both enable collaboration and sharing.

Both are accessible in world wide.

Convergence

It means voice, video and data networks are merged into one network.  It has more efficiency and less cost.

The cables, computers, and staffs for the voice and data systems can be reduced by convergence. The performance of them can be maximized. Since, the devices are reduced; the IT control is easier to be implemented.

Collaboration of blogs

Everyone can have a blog account. The users can post anything they want to share, discuss, or ask on their blogs; it can be text, picture, or links. The visitors can leave comments on the users’ blogs. The collaboration is formed between the users and visitors by post and comments.

Individual can create blog in order to share anything he or she wants to share with friends or family members.

Companies can create blog for information sharing and collaboration inside or outside of the companies. The employees or managements can discuss their new ideas about company products, comments on business operation. It enables the collaboration inside the company. Companies can show their new advertising and new products to customers on their blog. Customers can also leave comments on the blogs. It enables the collaboration outside the company.

Professors can ask students to create blog for class discussion on a given topic. Students can leave comments on each other’s post. It enables the collaboration between professor and students, and the collaboration among students.

The community can create a blog to discuss about the events in the community, such as an election. It enable to collaboration in the community.

These are few examples of collaborations of blog.

New use of wikis

The Wikis system can notice the visitors the misinformation and disinformation on their contents automatically. People tend to not believe the information on Wiki, because everybody can put information on Wikis, most people are not experts on the field. It is a problem for visitors, if them gather information for making important decision, doing homework, and so forth. It is very wonderful if Wiki can notify the visitors about the quality of information.

Research topic: New media and access for the disabled - boon or bust?

     According to US Census Bureau of 2000, there is 49.7 million people are disabled. The disability includes vision or hearing impairment, problems of basic physical movements, and cognitive problems, and so on. The disabilities restrict the individuals from performing daily function, getting work, and participating in the political and social life. Those restrictions create inequality between normal people and disabled people. The new media and access try to eliminate those restrictions, and the barrier between normal and disabled people. I will focus on disability of physical movements. There are different types of physical movement disability. They generally include muscular dystrophies, brain and spinal injuries, cerebral palsy, arms and legs injuries. I will provide examples to show how the new media and access help physical movement disabled people. Such as blogs give opportunities to share information and communicate with friends or other people in the community without going outside. E-Card is an electronic greeting card. We can send them over the internet without going out to mail a real card. To the receivers, the e-card also show s message, and it is much faster to get it. The social network sites include Myspace, Facebook, and so on. Those sites also allow the conversation between family, friends, and colleagues online. E-mail, Googledocs, and Texting allow people to send documents over the internet without physically bring the document to the receiver. Video sharing sites, such as youtube allow people to view video online without going out to buy them. People can engage political activities in political website, and discuss about the issue via the website. People can work at home with access to the company by computer. Those are the few simple examples which are the positive side of the new Medias. They help the physical disabled people perform things easily with computer at home without moving around. The negative side of the new media may be eliminating face to face meeting between friends, and people in the community. People get physically movement disability will do less and less movement when they spend major of time on the internet. Those are the general examples which are not based on research. I will explain the positive side and negative side with specific examples with scholar resource in my project.

Describe New Media

Examples of new media

Blogs, Facebook , MySpace,Twitter,Webcams, Second Lide
Wikis, Google Docs, Skype,Social Bookmarking, Mashups,Youtube,E-book, e Cards, photo sharing sites,virtual worlds, podcasts, and video sharing sites.
New medias enable people to share, edit, create contents with internet. The activity online are cheap or free.

Differences between old media and new media
Exemples of old media: Newspaper, magazine,TV, radio
Old media is  independent. There's less sharing and less communication among people or community.
Old media is changeless.It is hard to edit or criticize them.
Old media is slow. The information provided by old media is updated slowly.
New media updates in real time basis.
New media creates "collaboration" in community or organizaiton over the internet , such as Wiki.
New media connects people in the "community",such as Blog.
New media promote "creativity", such as photograph, cretive commons.
New media enable web-related "communication" online, such as Facebook, Myspace, e-mail(Friedman,Linda W. and Friedman, Hershey H.2008).
New media converges with other technologies, Such as online newspaper, eCard.
The old media lacks the characteristics of new media