Evidently there is some confusion among even knowledgeable technology educators regarding the basic differences between Web 2.0 and Internet2. We hear so much about Web 2.0, social networking, the read/write web, and everything associated with it that when many of us hear “Internet2,” we immediately translate it to “Web 2.0″ in our heads. But, alas, they are not one and the same. I am in no way an expert on all things technology or Internet or web, but I do think it is important to know the difference between these two terms.
So, what follows here is a quick and basic explanation/description of these two terms. And, yes, I am certain there will be some who disagree and see these in a different light, so please comment and share your thoughts and ideas!
Tim O’Reilly gives this compact definition of web 2.0: “Web 2.0 is the network as platform, spanning all connected devices; Web 2.0 applications are those that make the most of the intrinsic advantages of that platform: delivering software as a continually-updated service that gets better the more people use it, consuming and remixing data from multiple sources, including individual users, while providing their own data and services in a form that allows remixing by others, creating network effects through an “architecture of participation,” and going beyond the page metaphor of Web 1.0 to deliver rich user experiences.”
Web 2.0 includes a variety of applications such as Facebook, Flickr, Ning, MySpace, Second Life, blogs, wikis, etc. The way we use the Internet today with social networking and the democratization of content creation is what has comprised this new digital frontier.
Internet2, on the other hand, is a higher bandwidth, higher performance physical network that is used primarily by a group of universities and colleges for research and videoconferencing. Public libraries are beginning to tap into this “super network.” The state of California is doing great things in the educational realm with Internet2. The clarity of videoconferences conducted over Internet2 is excellent.
On the Internet2 website, the following information is given:
“Internet2 is the foremost U.S. advanced networking consortium. Led by the research and education community since 1996, Internet2 promotes the missions of its members by providing both leading-edge network capabilities and unique partnership opportunities that together facilitate the development, deployment and use of revolutionary Internet technologies.
By bringing research and academia together with technology leaders from industry, government and the international community, Internet2 promotes collaboration and innovation that has a fundamental impact on the future of the Internet.”
Michael Stephens has a post on his blog, “Tame the Web: Libraries and Technology,” that discusses the differences between Internet2 and Web 2.0 in a very concise manner.
So, the next time you hear “Internet2″ or read about it, hopefully you will now know that it is not synonymous with “Web 2.0,” and you will have a basic understanding of the differences between the two. And, yes, it does make sense that Web 2.0 applications could use Internet2…at least it did make sense before I started this whole discussion. 
More resources on this topic can be found on my delicious account using the following URL: http://del.icio.us/julener/internet2
