The Internet (Net) versus the World Wide Web (Web)

Morph waving behind 3 Ws

I expect you knew this, but I thought that Tim Berners-Lee was the inventor of the Internet. I was wrong; in fact it was Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn.

Well, partly wrong because Tim invented the Web and it was actually my ignorance of the difference between the Net and the Web that was at fault.

The Net is the physical network of computers and hardware linked together and the Web is the collection of sites and information that the Net enables access to.

I know that I hadn’t appreciated the two sides to this before now – probably reflecting how seamless the whole experience usually is. Goes to show that you need both the means and the vision to make a real success.

He explains the difference below, although we are no further enlightened as to why he added the space within “world wide” or what the vision for this was. Maybe he did it just because he could.
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