Wikis, Blogs, Forums and User Generated Content

What types of information should be put in wikis, blogs, forums and websites?

Wiki's are group edited webpages that give little identity to the author. Since a wiki is an open environment where anyone with access to the wiki can modify the language, I believe the best use for wikis is for a group to contribute factual information like in the case of wikipedia. Wikis still have issues with people changing language, adding items, and deleting items that contributors don't want changed, but the spirit is to improve the quality of the information. If the information was opinion in nature, it wouldn't work well in a wiki since the collection of authors are encouraged to add, change and improve vs working like an editor would on a personal work. All it would take to turn to the wiki into a mess is to have a few authors with different opinions. So wikis are a good place for facts and a poor choice for expressing personal opinion.

Blogs and HubPages are highly personal. They can be used for facts, opinion, discussion starters and many other options. In this sense, blogs are highly flexible, therefore, more customized to the desire of the author interms of layout, content, and purpose.

Why blog

• Share personal opinion
• Reflect your views
• Share information
• Debate

Blogs and Rewards

Blogs offer a different set of rewards than wikis.

• Personal recognition
• Monetary
• Personal view

Forums are another vehicle where multiple people can discuss a topic. Forums are great for having multiple people share knowledge and interact while preserving the individual's voice. The forum format can be successful for many types of information.

Uses for forums

• Discussions
• Question and Answer
• Debate

Comments on blogs are similar to a forum in the sense that this gives the audience a way to discuss and comment on the topic of the blog post. In my opinion, it's a blog if it has comments, otherwise its a webpage.