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The Internet changes EVERYTHING
A current that runs through any explanation of the rise of eBusiness is the Internet. The Internet changes everything! All we can do here is touch on its importance in a few areas. It is a unifying technology because its design is based on simple yet well-defined open standards which package and exchange digital information from any source. It strives to be a universal platform for global communication. It brought our worlds of telecommunication, television, and computer networking together. Now financial transactions, television programs, email, ATM transactions, cell phone communication, the entire content of the World Wide Web, and much much more, share the same method of packaging and exchanging data.
The Internet and the WWW: Each is Unique but based on a similar architecture
The architecture of the Internet is decidedly different. Rather than a centralized push technology, the Internet is based on the internetworking of many micro-atomic elements. Those elements abide by the same universal standards but otherwise can be quite different (hence the integration of so many disparate applications). This architecture led directly to the invention of the World Wide Web in 1994 by Tim Berners-Lee. The Web is a powerful application that uses the Internet. The Web emerged out of an effort to improve document collaboration at CERN, a university in Switzerland. Like the Internet it is based on simple, standard principles. Instead of focusing on data packets which the Internet exchanges, the Web exchanges web pages with text and pointers to rich content like sound, images, software programs, and video. See the difference? Of course to actually route those web pages the WWW uses the Internet.
The email, another Internet application existed long before it, tThe advent of the Web was for many sorta like the Internet's coming out party. It was an application with enough power to show the world what the Net really is: an entirely new model of communication, a two-way method of exchange, and the first intelligent artificial organism. And the Web extended the Internet. The web codifies and trains all knowledge in its vast distributed network of links. It too is decentralized and two-way and it allows us all to use rich media in our basic vocabulary. New applications are appearing on the Web almost daily and, in a way, it is becoming more like a conscious being. Certainly it is helping us to extend our consciousnous...to become much smarter individuals.
As the driving force of eBusiness, the Internet and Web, obviously, will continue to be a central obsession of this course. It is truly awesome to think of the extent to which these developments will take us over the next even twenty years!
Check out the early growth pattern of the Internet as compared with other technologies.
Posted by Mark Hemphill on September 21, 2004 | Permalink
Comments
I'm unsure if i'm the only one out there that is having a hard time distinguishing between the Internet and the World Wide Web. When i first entered this course i assumed that they were the same thing, now with the help of the scavenger hunt and this post, i'm completely baffled about the difference.
I understand that the WWW is only part of the Internet but what is Mark going on about when he talks about data packets used by the internet and web pages only being used by the WWW. Can anyone explain this to me?
Posted by: Samantha Paynter | Jan 14, 2005 11:12:30 PM
Good question Samantha. I'm sure you're not the only one asking this question. This is something we should take up in class.
Posted by: Mark | Jan 15, 2005 10:22:44 AM
I think the difference between the internet and the World Wide Web is analogous to the difference between hardware and software on a PC. The internet is the network connections that enable people to send packets of information to one another, like e-mail or documents. The World Wide Web was invented to make use of the internet, and it allows information to be "posted" on the internet for all to see, rather than just to a specific destination. The WWW also is the system of "pages" that we are now so familiar with.
I'm not an expert, but that's my take.
Posted by: Angela Gill | Jan 16, 2005 10:15:03 AM
The Difference between the internet and the WWW is that the WWW is a set of all the pages with a protocol of http while the internet is the interconneted system that connects computers to the world.
Posted by: Brad | Jan 16, 2005 1:38:30 PM
At first I didn't really see a clear difference between the World Wide Web and the Internet. What i got from that reading, was that the Internet was just a way of connecting computers and the World Wide Web used this tool to devolop web sites, and link people all over the world.
Posted by: Amy MacNeill | Jan 17, 2005 1:08:57 PM
When Samantha asked "I understand that the WWW is only part of the Internet but what is Mark going on about when he talks about data packets used by the internet and web pages only being used by the WWW. Can anyone explain this to me?"
I don't know the technical answer, but I do know if you do a ping test, it tells you how many packets were sent, received and lost. On this link I found this explanation. About the ping test
I know you can also do a trace route to see where your pc is going out to do a search on what web address you are looking for. This link may help you understand. Traceroute
I hope this helps with packets, sent and received.
Posted by: Kim MacKay | Jan 18, 2005 2:59:59 PM
From the article above, what I get is that WWW is a type of media in presenting information throught the internet? is that right?
and, besides WWW, are there any other applications using the internet?
Posted by: Christy Lau | Sep 23, 2005 10:08:30 AM
I too didn't really understand the difference between the Inetrnet and the WWW. I believe a good definition would be : The Internet is the name for the system of computers that are connected through the international telecommunications system. The World Wide Web, or "web," is a way to use the Internet. The Internet can exist without the Web, but the Web cannot exist without the Internet. Other ways to use the net would be by FTP or Gopher for example. I hope this definition helps.
Posted by: Michael Roberts | Sep 23, 2005 1:10:32 PM
Like many of the 700 million users that use the web, I too had no idea that there was actually a difference between the internet and the web. Even after reading Mark's post, I still had some difficulty trying to grasp how they were different. However Mike's simplification of the internet and WWW made a lot of sense to me and gave me a better understanding of the difference between the two.
After reading how the internet led to the creation of the web and how the internet evolved due to the web. It will be interesting to see how the two will feed off each other in future years and if it leads to another new technoolgy that will change how the world operates.
Posted by: Rob Horne | Sep 25, 2005 6:26:37 PM
Yes, Michael that definition helps.
Christy, email, instant messager, and bank machines sre just a couple of other applications that use the Internet.
Posted by: Mark | Sep 25, 2005 8:06:47 PM
I, also, wasn't very familiar with the difference between the Web and the internet, but with the help of the article above and a few of the posts, I feel confident of the distinction. I'm wondering if Tim Berners-Lee received a Nobel Prize for inventing the web? The web is an enormous database of collective knowledge and can be accessed by anyone with a pc and internet connection. When you think about the power of the internet and the myriad of information contained on the web, it is absolutely astounding. I know when I go searching for information contained on the web, I always end up going off on some tangent search; I often find very useful knowledge by accident this way. But like anything else, the internet/web has the potential to be used for good or evil. It can create a very "sticky" legal situation when someone feels that the "internet police" have taken away their right to free speech. How do you decide on appropriate guidelines to police the internet/web? On a side note, I once heard that there are more pornography sites on the web than all other types of information combined. Given the wealth of knowledge found all over the web, if this statistic is true, then that is truly disturbing!!
Posted by: Aaron Carmichael | Sep 26, 2005 12:02:37 AM
The difference between the internet and World Wide Web is now, quite clear. Before there was a fairly thin line of what each really was and a question of whether there was actually a difference. It may be amazing to think about how computers may actually take us all over, but in away they already started to. What I find amazing is that we have no idea how far computers will take us and what is to expected from us in the future? I guess we'll have to wait and see.
Posted by: Tara Stewart | Sep 26, 2005 8:38:32 AM
Ok so WWW is an application that uses the web and I understand everything behind the whole creation of the internet and how it works but is there another application that works like WWW? Nothing like e-mail but somethin as big as WWW and if not could one be created?
Posted by: Mitch A | Sep 26, 2005 6:15:56 PM
This is probably a very simple explanation of the difference between the www and the internet...but it did make it very clear to me when I first read it. WWW is a universe of accessible information stored on computers throughout the world. The information is available through a gigantic network called the Internet. It may be to simplistic for some, but the more simple the better for this old girl.
Posted by: Frieda MacLaren | Sep 17, 2007 12:56:08 PM
I too had no idea the World Wide Web and the Internet was different from one another. I figured it was just one big application. After reading this blog entry however, I do have a better understanding as to the difference between the two. It is rather interesting to me that it seems the World Wide Web was made almost as an attempt to make use of the Internet just because it was there, now look at the significance it has on the entire World. Also, I found Aaron’s comment, “How do you decide on appropriate guidelines to police the internet/web,” a very good question and I too would like to know the answer. I remember it being said that when users send e-mails to one another there is an almost artificial human computer or database that reviews each and every e-mail for specific words and if they find red flag words they further study the e-mail incase it contains illegal/terrorist information. Is there something that does this on the WWW also?
Posted by: Jordyn Woodside | Oct 13, 2007 3:28:20 PM
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