Blogs vs. Wikis

Blogs are a formative way of getting across important, relevant, and up-to-the-minute news on the Internet. Certain blogs, however, are satirical or they are made purely to make people laugh (nothing wrong with that). For example, failblog.org displays recent items in which people have 'failed.' Most are funny, comical looks at the way people behave. Blogs are an incredible source of focused information, as well. USA Today has a blog called "Today in the Sky: Airline News and Airport Blog." There are many focused blogs on many topics. The advantage to blogs is that they include many posts and people can comment on these posts. On most blogging sites there is no limit on the number of posts a user can make. Blogs' interfaces are largely configureable, meaning a blogger can make different backgrounds and content can appear differently than on other blogs. Blogs have the ability to influence a large number of people since a lot are opinionated. One blog in particular takes that to an extreme because the people moderating it are WalMart employees, and they do not hide their identities. The New York Times highlighted this in an article entitled "Wal-Mart Tastemakers Write Unfiltered Blog."

While most blogs are opinionated and offer discussion about specialized interests, wikis are largely negatively viewed if they are opinionated in any way. Wikis are generally collections of information that users collaboratively add to whenever new or relevant information comes along. Wikis, too, can and usually are focused on a specific subject, but they do not offer 'stories' on the subject, rather they have one article with subsections on this one subject. Most everyone has heard of or used Wikipedia. This is the most famous wiki. There are more, less famous wikis that other people get much use from. The State Department has its own wiki, which is hidden from the general public, but State Department employees take part in it. The New York Times detailed much of the goings-on in its article "An Internal Wiki That's Not Classified."

Wikis are most likely the easiest and most convenient way to collaborate on a project, but blogs do have some collaborative capabilities. If a blogger leaves a post about lung cancer for a science project, for example, his group members can comment on the post, saying what should be changed, added, or removed. If all group members have the ability to moderate the blog, the blog can perform similarly to a wiki. Blogger has the ability for users to change or alter a post after it has been posted initially. This functions like a wiki in a sense, but once other posts have been made and the original post has been 'pushed' off the page, it might be difficult or annoying to find it again and change it. Also, a blog does not necessarily track changes like a wiki would.

Wikis would be a great way for doctors, nurses, or anyone in the healthcare field to collaborate. Such a breadth of knowledge would be a benefit to practitioners and patients alike. Doctors would be able to detail the success or failure of a certain procedure, surgery, or drug. Nurses would highlight the importances of certain life saving techniques in the ER. Pharmacists would discuss warnings about drug interactions. All of this information would be linked together through different articles and it would make the healthcare field regulated and in-tune with the current necessities of the sick.