Blogs vs. Wikis

Whats the difference? Who uses what?
Wikis tend to be crowd source meaning that multiple users can edit and post new topics on the site whereas Blogs are generally like a journal written by one person. There are however blogs that are run by multiple people. One such blog is Gizmodo.com which is a blog about new and upcoming electronics and anything that may appeal to techies. It is updated constantly by different writers that work on the site. Each writer offers their own unique touch and identity to the blog.
The biggest difference between wikis and blogs is that wikis are meant to have factual information posted while blogs can have opinions and emotions attached.

That might be one of the reasons companies would want to have their own corporate wikis than blogs. I doubt managers and executives would want to know what an analyst in the tax department thinks about James Cameron's "Avatar" but they might be interest in knowing when their company is expecting to file their tax returns. In Gardiner Morse's article "Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales on making the most of company wikis" in the Harvard Business Review, Jimmy wales talks about how more and more companies are starting to use wikis but many lower level employees are afraid to edit postings from managers. Transparency is important in companies and it would be very helpful to the company if all post were as correct as they could be. One way they could resolve this problem is to just let a couple of lower level employees write the wikis for the company with the information past down from higher-ups. This way, the employees could correct each other while having their correct information from Managers.

Wikis are constantly growing and there is always a new type everyday but they can also learn alot from blogs if they haven't already. Many blogs have post about How-to's and Recipes for cooking, etc and wikipedia has copied them and created wiki-how-to's, etc. One thing i haven't seen wikis developed yet from blogs is tourism. Many people post pictures and reviews on their blogs about vacations they went on and local specialties they can visit. A wiki can be created to have a where to visit in a city.

Gardiner, Morse. "A conversation with Jimmy Wales." Harvard Business Review (April 2008): 26 Feb, 2009.

Old vs. New

What can we really call new? Something that came out recently or something that is so innovative that it changes the way we do it. Does the New replace the Old? NO! New media differs from old media just because its a new way of doing something. Lets take for example like reading the New York Times. Some of us might have the newspaper deliver to our homes everyday and read it on our way to school or work but now, the news is online and updated every second and its free. Does this mean the paper form is obsolete? Of course not! It might not be as popular anymore but its still alive. Some people prefer to read it because they have free time on the train and there isn't any internet available . You can only have so many Taylor Swift songs on your ipod to listen to before you get bored and want to catch up on the news written on free newspapers.

The difference between New media and old media can be summed up like a simple equation. Think of Old media as a variable X and New media as X+1. In this case the 1 is internet. New media is basically any old media that can be done with the addition of the internet.

Social Networks and Relationships

New Media has become an unprecedented force in social interaction. 1 in 8 couples married in the U.S. met online. Dating sites like eharmony have made millions in revenue and terms like "facebook stalk" have been use to use to describe clingy boyfriends/girlfriends. How has this trend come about? what happen to meeting someone in a bar or talking to someone face to face? have we become so immerse in the internet that we even try to find a spouse online like how we look for a jacket on the Gap website?

What is New Media?

When we hear the words New Media, some of us think of the internet but it goes so much beyond that. New Media has taken over so many aspects of our lives that we don't even realize it. One day you decide to create a facebook account because all of your friends have one and the enxt thing you know, you're checking it at school, at home, at work, and on your phone. Now facebook is just one example of New media. Other examples are Twitter, Youtube, Hulu, Podcasts and Wikis.

The one thing all of these New medias have in comment is the internet. They are all connected through the internet and need it to function. One big effect of new media is how we have watch videos. When i was younger, i would just sit in front of the TV watch whatever was on. When my parents got cable, i thought i had the whole universe in my hand in the form of a remote and the ability to watch so many programs. If i wanted to watch cartoons at 2 in the morning, there were 8 different channels that ran cartoons 24/7. When websites like sites like youtube and hulu became popular, it was like a revolution in watching TV. Suddenly we could watch any show we want at anytime we want. If we wanted to just watch one scene from a show, we can just search for it online and voila! there it is. TV has essentially become extinct because of this. Lisa M. Holson writes for the new york times that she gave her TV away because she could watch whatever shows she wants online at anytime and She no longer has to remember what time her shows are on. Youtube has also now enable us to make our own videos and be the stars in our own videos for others to enjoy. This has enable creativity to soar and open teh doors to new ways of interacting with the world. In Clive Thompson's article on how youtube change how we think, he explains how self-created videos on youtube like MadV's video onhas usher us into a new era of interaction and media and we can only imaginie where it can take us 100 years from now.

Thompson, Clive. "Clive Thompson on How Youtube Changes the Way We Think." Wired (12.22.2008): 19 Feb 2010

Holson, Laura. "Who Needs a TV? I’m Watching on a Laptop." New York Times (2008): n. pag. Web. 19 Feb 2010

1st Post

Yeah, finally got a blog.

Never really cared for these things cause i thought of them as being narcissistic but its not bad.