Wednesday, 9 January 2008

Blogs don't have to be for blogging

..And wikis don't have to be encyclopedias.

A blog is a website with a predetermined format - posts in date sequence. It doesn't have to be used for writing an online diary or collection of online musings.

A wiki is a website that anyone can edit. Wikipedia is the only wiki that many people have heard of, so these people often think wiki equals encyclopedia.

What might an organisation's collection of written material be like if was all on blogs and wikis?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Amen. Like many people, I got into wikis because I was intrigued by wikipedia. But once inside, I saw a whole range of uses that had nothing to do with encyclopedias. Wikipedia has provided a huge boost for wiki awareness, but it has also perpetuated a very restricted view of their usefulness and applicability.

Simon Carswell said...

I agree. I also find that there's a lack of awareness of the audit trail of changes contained in wikis. I'm currently in a debate about use of a document management system as a place to keep the 'latest version' of a document. I'm being pushed down a path that leads to the creation of yet another bucket that people will forget to fill. Why not use a wiki and look at the history?