Collaborating with Wiki's

Group projects in a college setting can be very difficult due too many factors such as work, personal or athletic obligations, or simply because college students are lazy. However, technology has made collaboration among peers easier for not only college students, but for the business world as well. This technology is known as the “wiki.” According to How To Use Wikis For Business by Ezra Goodnoe, A wiki is “"the simplest online database that could possibly work." as he wrote for the InformationWeek.

Some examples of wiki’s include, the most obvious, Wikipedia.com and Google Documents. Starting with Wikipedia, Wikipedia.com is a website that is updateable and re-editable by users. The website works as follows, as a user post a review or overview of particular topic and other users view it. If another member doesn’t agree or thinks the first user is in correct then user will re-edit the document. And so it’s an ongoing process. Google documents are similar but work a little differently. The main difference is that Wikipedia is for everyone and the Google documents are or specified users. For example, In the Google World, a user has to invite users to collaborate on a Document or Power Point Presentation. Then, the invited user would then join and have access to the uploaded document that the initial user uploaded. Now two people have access to this particular document. Now the magic occurs; being as the document is stored online, and accessed online, it can be edited online, but not only by one user by multiple. The key is that the database or document is updated real-time. So therefore, if multiple users are editing online simultaneously, updates immediately. So that everyone else can see your changes as you or they, make them. It reduces the confusion in e-mailing documents to and from multiple users. Wiki’s are the same exact thing except they’re in the form of WebPages.

The funny thing about this technology is that its been around for more than a decade, we’ve just never utilized or harnessed the gravity of it. In my opinion, all of the new Google technology, including wiki’s is groundbreaking. Google is taking the Internet into the next level of computing. It’s exciting to think about the years ahead of us and all of the new technology we'll be exposed to, just because we're human beings that live during the time period of the twenty-first century.