[Air-l] Internet vs. WWW

[Art McGee]

> Up till now, i've commonsensically used "the Internet" to 
> denote, essentially, everything that i can access or 
> receive and anyone i connect with when i "go online" 
> (connect my computer to data that is not on my computer's 
> harddrive). In other words, i've used "the Internet" to 
> denote the sum of all that's online.

Incorrect. The sum total of all that is metaphorically 
referred to as "online" is most properly called Cyberspace.

Some people extend cyberspace to include non-computer 
related technologies and forms of communication not 
involving technology, but for the most part, common usage of 
the term Cyberspace has narrowed over the years to be 
specific to CMC.

Cyberspace predates The Internet and is a superset of The 
Internet. Cyberspace includes proprietary networks and 
protocols that existed before the Internet was conceived of 
and still exist outside of it.

> I've always assumed commonsensically that "the world wide 
> web" simply denotes the network of computers that are 
> "online" (all or part of the time). Since what's online 
> has to rest (or am i missing some basic tech fact?) on 
> some computer, and since to access what's on a particular 
> computer, that computer needs to connected to other 
> computers, "the World Wide Web" and "the Internet" as i 
> understood their meaning refer to the same referent.

Incorrect. The Internet proper is a distributed network of 
networks which consists of a common set of technical 
protocols that serve as the foundation upon which almost all 
CMC services or groups of services currently rest, including 
the WWW. The Internet is essentially an open communications 
platform and agreement upon which services are built. The 
Internet itself doesn't do anything. What makes The Internet 
special is what it allows you to build with it.

The WWW is a subset and extension of the The Internet, 
consisting of both a communications protocol (HTTP) and a 
page markup language (HTML), whose specific purpose is the 
presentation of information in a format that previously was 
only possible via desktop publishing. In other words, the 
WWW was created in order to move some aspects of DTP from 
your local hard disk onto the larger network. Previously, 
most information on the net was served in extremely simple 
ASCII text formats.

The Internet predates the WWW. The WWW is a recent extension 
and addition to The Internet. Before the WWW, there were 
other cruder protocols and services which had a similar 
function and purpose. They went by names such as ARCHIE, 
VERONICA, GOPHER, and WAIS.

> also, up till now i also thought of "cyberworld" as an a 
> term interchangeable with the other two terms, but that 
> leaves me with no term to denote the "life-world" of 
> people online, as distinguished from "the Internet" as 
> defined above. Could "cyberworld" be used to denote this 
> "life-world", or will that be another gross carelessness 
> with definitions (i can almost feel Thomas Hobbes standing 
> behind me getting ready to slap me ... )

Cyberspace is definitely NOT interchangeable with The 
Internet or the WWW. As I said before:

Cyberspace is a superset of The Internet.

Cyberspace predates The Internet.

Cyberspace exists outside of The Internet.

The Internet is a superset of The WWW.

The Internet predates The WWW.

The WWW is a subset and extension of The Internet.


Art