Twitter, Blogs, Online Forums, and Wikis [Tara Milliken]

I know we've mentioned a lot of these in class, but we haven't went into elaborate detail about any of them . . . and so, in an effort to better understand some of these myself, here is my attempt to explain each of the following: Wikis, Online Forums, Blogs, and Twitter.

I would be willing to guarantee that each of us has used Wikipedia at some point in our life, and in fact, the majority of my definitions for this blog will probably come from there, but do we actually understand what it is? A wiki is defined as a website that uses wiki software, allowing the easy creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages. They are most often used to create collaborative websites and to power community websites. A fun fact is that "wiki" is the Hawaiian word for "fast," and can also be expanded to stand for "What I Know Is." Pretty cool, huh?

Online forums, or message boards, are considered online discussion sites. Think of it as a modern equivlent to the traditional bulletin board. These forums are considered web applications managing user-generated content. People participating in Internet forums may cultivate social bonds and interests groups for a specific topic of interest.

I included blogs as a joke . . . I mean, seriously, if you are unsure as to what it is by now (i.e. week ten), we have much bigger problems to worry about. haha.

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read other users' updates, know as 'tweets.' In February 2009, a researcher listed Twitter as the 3rd most utilized social network, with Facebook being the first, and MySpace coming in at number 2. Amazingly enough, this was only created in 2006 -- talk about a boom in popularity.