Wiki's are a great way to get your voice heard on the Net. You can start a wiki about anything you want. This allows you to discuss something that's important to you while at the same time getting opinions and information from other people that visit your wiki. Allow your readers to become part of your Web site. They can add their ideas to your wiki and make your site that much better. The best part about a wiki, you don't need to learn any new software or install anything or upload any files to your computer. You also don't need to know HTML or any other type of programming language. You just need to type into your browser. Simple.
What Can I Do With a Wiki?
So, I bet you're wondering what kinds of things you can do with a wiki. Here are a few ideas.
Do you have a site online where you host your photos so your friends and family can come see them? Now you can take your online photo album to a whole new level.
Move your photos to your wiki and allow your friends and family to add comments, backgrounds, stories about the photos or anything else they want. Maybe they could even add photos of their own, if you want them too.
Try out this scenario. You have a special event coming up, let's say a wedding or a graduation or maybe a family reunion. You want to know who's coming, if their bringing guests, how long their planning on staying, what hotel their staying at and what else they may be bringing. By having them post their information on the wiki you can better plan your party and they can plan to do things with other people who are coming. Maybe they want to stay in the same hotel or meet someone somewhere.
Do you have someone or something that you want to create a tribute or memorial to? A wiki is great for this too. You can post information about the person, place or event and other people can post their ideas, feelings and facts they know about it. This can be about anything you want; you're favorite rock star or TV show or someone you lost that is dear to you or an event like September 11, the Tsunami of December 1994 or the war. It's ultimately up to you, after all, it's your wiki.
Are you involved in a group of some kind; a sport, church, after school activities? Create a wiki for it. You can keep your members up to date on the latest events and other things. They can let you know if they can come to the events or if they want to help out and what they can do. This can be immensely useful to both you and them.
Why Wiki?
All you, or your wiki's readers have to do to make a change to a wiki is click a button, edit the page, and click another button. The WYSIWYG type editor that comes with most wiki's will let you do all sorts of things with your wiki and you don't have to know anything about coding or Web design to do it. Change colors, add photos, add backgrounds and have fun.
Did you ever upload a Web page to your site with an error on it? Then months later someone emails you about the error and you think, "Oh no, this errors been up for months, hundreds of people have seen it, they must think I'm an idiot for making this error." Worry no more. With a wiki the person who notices the error can quickly fix it himself, no problem. Now only one person has seen your error. I don't just mean spelling errors. Maybe you got your facts wrong about something important, they can fix that too.
The ability to easily update information is another great thing about a wiki. Let's say your wiki is about your favorite rock star. He's done something and you didn't hear about it, but one of your readers did. That person can come to your wiki and add the new information to the wiki in minutes. Now your wiki's up to date again. If that person had his facts wrong then the next person who comes along and reads what he wrote can fix it too. Isn't that great?!
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