Wiki’s and Blogs are two popular means by which people can create, share and collaborate on the world wide web. Creative collaboration is a term that can be used synonymously with Web 2.0, because at the heart of Web 2.0 is the creating and sharing of content between large numbers of users. That being said I have tried understanding in my own way what the difference is between a blog and a wiki, and I really want to use my own experience of the two to try and separate them as two different pieces of technology with potentially different uses and applications.

Blogs

A blog, in my view, is a website that uses a content management system that allows a user to create and publish narrative content that is intended for a large audience. The narrative ‘pieces’ are published in a journal-style way, with each published narrative ‘piece’ being listed on the website in a chronological fashion. A website that functions as a blog generally allows visitors to leave comments on each narrative piece. This website is an example of a blog.

Wiki’s

A wiki, in my opinion, is a website that uses a content management system that allows multiple users to create and collaborate content. I personally use a Wiki to document ideas and concepts for websites and share the content with users in my development team. I then let them add their ideas to the existing content and in so-doing build an effective document to work from. A wiki also allows users to search for topics and if they cannot find an item or topic it allows them to create the content. This is slightly different from the way a blog works.