How are Wikis being used by the public?

Today I'm going to show you four different Wikis. The first two are about completely random subjects, the third is a homepage to a Wiki created by design students and the fourth is an article written by the students themselves about Wikis. Their Wiki is a little bit like a mini Wikipedia, as it not only has information about design and architecture but also about other things, however unlike Wikipedia you need an account to write and edit articles, but anyone on the internet can see the actual articles. Have a look at the four websites here, The Science Musesum, Lenovo Thinkpads, School of Architecture and Wiki Good Style. I think everyone will agree that the first one made by the Science Museum is a brilliant idea for a Wiki for many reasons. Firstly it gets children and adults involved in Wikis in the first place, as many people are still unaware as to what they are. Secondly it brings people who are passionate about certain subjects together and allows them to discuss their thoughts to whatever ability and matureness they can. This wiki also brings education into the 21st century and brings it learning to life for children. Most children are very internet capable, in some cases more so than adults, this means they find they the idea of learning and discussing things through books and writing very dull and old fashioned. However bring learning to their level, on the internet, and they are suddenly interested. Finally it is very good advertising for the Science museum as it means people will be persuaded to go and see certain exhibitions by people's posts. The second Wiki I think is also brilliant. again it brings people together through a subject they love, but it also teaches people and gives them advice about Lenovo Thinkpads and other things. This is good as people often pay much more attention and learn more from speaking one on one to a real person rather than reading things out of a manual. The third link brings you to the homepage of a Wiki called Wiki fish, set up by some design students, so they can collaborate their information and ideas together. A good idea in principal, however I do not like how they have interpreted the meaning of the Wiki. Firstly they urge you to change their own rules so they suit you. I do not agree with this because the internet should not differ from the real world so much, to point where there should not be rules, if we can change the rules at any time then basically we do not have rules, rules are there to protect us whether we agree with them or not. The second thing I do not like about the Wiki is how aggressive it is in its opinion that if you do not change what's written then you do not really deserve to have an opinion. I do not agree with this as you should not just go around changing things so they agree with your opinions, you should respect people's views, especially if they are written and presented in a clever way. Finally I definitely do not agree with the last Wiki page. It is obnoxious and shows little faith in humans. It suggests that people do not stick to Wikis and simply get bored of other people's opinions and move on to other people's Wikis. It is almost telling you yourself to do this. It does say a very small piece at the bottom about trying to have good faith with others ideas, but it is not enough to compensate for what was said earlier. Even if it was a joke, it may put people off using Wikis if it is their first time. I believe the purpose of most Wikis is a bit like facebook, combined with a debate, combined with teaching. People say their opinions and argue about them, people teach people about different subjects, and they also make friends.

Wikis

Wiki’s are a growing feature on the internet and in my opinion very soon every public website i.e. those that don’t require a password to enter them or a username or membership, will be wiki’s. However I do not think that it will work in the way that anyone can write on any website, I think they will still need permision from the originalcreator, but they will still be able to edit it without being the original creator, this is the case on websites like the BBC. But what actually is a wiki? The best and most famous example of a wiki is surprisingly “Wikipedia”. There are many sites like Wikipedia on the internet, sites that are also online encyclopaedias, but what makes Wikipedia unique? What makes Wikipedia successful? It is that fact that it is a wiki. You may have guessed now what a wiki is, but to put it in simpler terms, pretend a wiki is like an empty bottle, anyone on the web can reach this bottle and anyone can contribute to the bottle to make it fuller and fuller, so in essence a wiki is a webpage which anyone can comment on, or add information to. This means Wikipedia can be more up to date than any other website and can also have more accurate detailed information than any other website as experts can focus on their particular subject. Of course on huge sites like Wikipedia this is not strictly true, as you can not just say anything about anything, if something is obviously not true and is not sensible and it is posted on Wikipedia it is taken down within minutes. A brief history of wikis; they were created by Ward Cunningham who started to develop the first wiki site in 1994, “wikiwikiweb”. The name wiki came from when Cunningham was told on arrival in Honolulu airport to take the “wiki wiki” shuttle bus, the word “wiki-wiki” means quick, which is why he chose it instead of the name “quick-web”. Cunningham released his website onto the web on March 25, 1995, since then the idea to have a “wiki-website” has taken off. They are predominately used for websites that need constant quick updating, and on websites which serve a lot of people who need to get information across to people easily, e.g. company intranets.
Bibliography, ironically most of information came for Wikipedia.
Below is an excellant video showing how useful Wikis are

Google Earth

Google Earth, as suggested by the title, is an application created by Google that lets you observe the Earth. The program is downloadable in two forms; one is for free and allows you to use the basic settings of Google earth. The other is called Google earth pro and costs $400, of course being at the age where I can't earn money I have no idea what this version allows you to do, even if I did have the spare $400 it would not be worth much to me, as it is intended for commercial use.
Google Earth in its newest version, Google Earth 4.3, has several very useful functions. The first most obvious ones, is it allows you to observe anywhere on the Earth on any scale of size. This has been possible by Satellites and other aerial devices taking photos of everywhere on Earth, then after superimposition the photos were pieced together to make a map of the world.
Another function which Google earth has added since its update is the ability to see certain famous buildings in 3D. This is not Google’s own idea, as Microsoft has had the function ever since they released their own version of Google earth, virtual earth. However Google have taken the application a little further, if you click on these famous buildings, a bubble appears beside them and gives you some information about the building. Another extremely fun application on Google earth is the Easter egg that allows you to choose a plane which you can then fly all around the world, with the Google earth scenery below you. Google earth and Google maps have been linked through some very clever applications. If you click on a building e.g. your house, you are give the option to either get directions from your house to another place, or directions from another place to your house, the directions are of course those used on Google maps. This helps as if you need to get to a place, but do not know the address which is key for Google maps, but you know roughly where it is, you are able to still get instructions on how to get there. It is also possible to bookmark anyplace on Google earth which means a little yellow pin is left over the place you have bookmarked and makes it easier to get to that place.
Below is a video which shows you some of the new functions on Google Earth 4.3

This video shows you how to use Google Earth on your I-pod touch or I-phone

This video below shows you how to find and use the flight simulator on Google Earth 4.2