Blogs and Wikis are both phenominal advances in media that sum up the pros and cons in my last post about New Media. The big plus of both of them is the access they allow for everyone. However, there is a big difference between the two as far as access is concerned. Blogs allow for everyone to read them as well as comment on them. Wikis on the other hand allow people to read and not only comment on them but actually edit them. Blogs are somewhat of a hybrid of new media and old media because of the fact that not anyone can edit it. Blogs are run by an entity, whether it be a person or a group of people, and that entity has more control than other people since they control the website. Wikis on the other hand are left to the users, who are trusted to provide accurate information. This is a concept reviewed extensively in John Sutter's article 'No Longer the Wild West.' Sutter notes that the concept of giving more power to the users has been adopted by Youtube and Digg. Cnn's iReport on the other hand has managers who monitor content and decide what is appropriate. The question in relation to blogs are whether the owner of the blog has too much control. The ability of users to comment somewhat checks that power, however most people do not view all the comments on blogs, stopping after the first couple, if that many.
A possible new use for Wikis could be in the gaming spectrum. Most online games foster competition between people and the concept of collaboration of the minds are generally not seen in the gaming arena. People working together, however, is the essence of blogs and wikis and perhaps wikis can find an area of brain teasers or word games where people can collaborate in order to achieve the best possible result.
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