Blog v Wiki

With technology constantly advancing, new ways for people to communicate, and collaborate with one another were developed in the process. Two of these new technologies are blogs, and wikis. Both are websites used to communicate information/knowledge with the rest of the world. However, they both have different methods of doing so. A wiki is a hub of information/knowledge in which anyone who has a wiki account may contribute to a wiki page by editing it, and adding more information. This collaboration of information, for the most part is based on facts. A blog is more like an online journal or diary in which a user may post their opinon on a topic. Only the original poster may edit a post on a blog, while other bloggers may comment on said blog post and also share their thoughts. Basically a wiki is the collaboration of multiple authors working together on a page so that it has the most accurate information possible, while a blog is a single author sharing their thoughs on one or more topics. Despite how both platforms do thinks differenly, they are similar in the sense that the anybody can create a blog or wiki; no matter how experienced they are. "Most blog authors are amateurs with a passion; many are subject matter experts." says Kathy E. Gill in her article How can we measure the influence of the blogosphere? 

With the convergence of media in today's networked world, communication has become much more efficient as the interconnection of information, media, and communication technologies leads to more accurate and widespread forms of information and media, as well as new innovations in technology with like smartphones. Cellphone were simply used for mobile phone calls before, but now you can read or watch the news, have video call with others, and so much more on these small devices. Media orginizations now try to cover several bases such as text, video, podcasts, and even livestreams to get informations out as quickly as and acurately as possible to the world. To have the most optimal form of communication possible, convergence is definitely necessary in today's networked world.

Though blogging is more independent rather than collaborative work, blogs can indeed be used for collaboration. If one blogger posts their thoughts on a topic and other bloggers comment on the post, also sharing what they know on said topic, you now have a network in which mutiple parties are expanding on their own knowledge due to info they're gaining from other posters. In New York Times article Brooklyn Blog Helps Lead to Drug Raid, bloggers in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bay Ridge shared complaints on local blogging website BayRidgeTalk.com regarding two neighboring homes located on 93rd Street. The posts spoke about suspiscious and violent activity they noticed surrounding the home on the daily. One post about the activites then got a reply to which another neighbor stated that the home was a crack house. Another poster then shared his knowledge on recent deaths in the neighborhood which were definitely due to drug overdoses. Eventually the bloggers began to take action. "'At the end of the day, it was about putting aside anonymity, putting aside the HTML and physically showing up,' said Jason Miller, 37, the pet shop owner, better known to many as PetShopBoy, his login name on BayRidgeTalk.com." (2) Said action would then lead to narcotics investigation which then let to the raid of the home and the arrest of 5 indiividuals. Their shared information on activity regarding the home would lead to a major problem being solved.

Since wikis can be updated by anybody at any time to be as up to date as possible, a format like that could be very useful for news websites

Twitch.tv: Changing gaming today

I'm gonna be doing my project on twitch.tv and how it's transforming gaming today. Twitch is a website where people are able to live broadcast whatever video games they're playing to the entire world. The scale of these live streams can go from a someone simply playing through a video game in their room, to a large eSports tournament with thousands of dollars on the line, or huge charity events. Some people have gained enough popularity from streaming on twitch that they are able to make it into a job. This is made possible through applying for twitch partnership, where you gain a subscription button on your channel where viewers may subscribe (typically for $4.99) to gain access sub emoticons, and more depending on the streamer. Special requirements must be met to gain a sub button of course (viewed here: https://www.twitch.tv/partner/signup). Fans will also donate money to their favorite streamers, which can aid them in buying better equipment to improve the quality of their stream. Running ads every now and then during the stream is also a factor. I play fighting games, and travel to tournaments to compete as a hobby. Most of these tournaments are streamed on twitch. The most famous of these tournaments is the Evolution series, held in Las Vegas every July. Evo started out pretty small as just a tournament at an arcade, but has grown into a colossal event held in a huge ballroom for 3 days with high quality live streams with commentary, and so much more due to exposure.

Hello! My name is Kevin Rodriguez. I'm a CompSci student currently attending Brooklyn College. Nice to meet you!