Blogs vs Wiki

Blogs and Wikis have made their way into professional settings. Both can be used as cyber social spaces for collaboration and knowledge sharing. In the two articles, "More on How to Build Your Own Wikipedia" by Margaret Locher and "Wal-Mart Tastemakers" by Michael Barbaro we see how both blogs and wikis find their purpose in the workplace. Wikipedias are used more for information collection and data sharing. This seems to be a very effective use of a group wiki because organizing information, numbers, chart, clients etc in a large company can be a very daunting task and physical copies of this information is archaic. A wiki also doesn't take up data on a hard drive than can potentially crash or run out of space. Using a wiki as a collaborative think space between likeminded employees is good was of collecting and sharing valuable knowledge. In the case of the Wal-Mart article, blogs are being used for experience sharing. The employees of Wal-Mart give a candid account of their experience with certain products or relationships with suppliers. I don't think making this content public is a good idea but for internal affairs within a company it can have benefits. It does however, benefit the public who are interested in these products. The blog provides Wal-Mart customers with a professional insight into the quality or value of the product. Blogs are best used a platform for an individual or individuals to share their opinions, thoughts, experiences. The most common type of Blog I see today is a travel blog where users share their experience in a certain city and provide a long list of their favorite parts of the trip. This is very helpful for travelers who are unsure where or how to spend their time in a foreign place.