Al Gore may not have invented the Internet, but it never ceases to amaze how little people know about this thing our former vice president from Tennessee called “the Information Superhighway.”

So what is the difference between the Internet and the Web?

I get this question often even from friends who are pretty savvy at negotiating the Web and could not live without their Internet e-mail, even when they have to use the Web to access it while they are on the road on summer vacation.

I used to explain it to my students this way.

The World Wide Web, where you view Web sites in a Web browser, is like the Interstate. That’s why it is called “the Information Superhighway.” Anyone with an Internet connection and a Web browser such as Microsoft Explorer can get on the Interstate and view any Web site that is not password protected.

One way to view the Internet is that it is more like a series of service roads and on ramps to the Interstate, to the World Wide Web. The Internet is a series of computers connected through phone and coaxle cable lines. The Web is where information is published that can be accessed via the Internet.

You have to get on the service road and the on ramp before getting on the Interstate, right? So you have to have an Internet Service Provider (ISP) to get online and get to the Web

If you use an Internet e-mail client such as Outlook or Eudora or even AOL, you do not have to get on the Information Superhighway to access your e-mail. You do not have to open a Web browser . . . unless, of course, you are on the road. Most e-mail clients allow Web access to your e-mail through a browser, usually called “Web mail.”

If that is still not clear, I give up. You have to own a car and be able to afford $2.50 a gallon gas to get on the Interstate these days anyway. You have to be able to afford a computer and an ISP to get on the Internet, and you have to know how to download a Web browser and have some addresses of where to go to get on the Information Superhighway.

Meanwhile, one of the coolest things about the Web is that the best newspapers post an online version the night before they come out in print. Many corporate news chains resist this, perhaps because they are far more interested in selling their print editions than serving their audiences by getting the news online in a timely manner. So like the Birmingham News, for example, they wait until the morning to post the headline links - when the print edition is already on the streets.

But smarter news companies began putting their stories online as soon as they were ready to print, even hours before the printing presses began to roll. While there are a number of worthy complaints out there about today’s New York Times, dare we call it “the Bill Keller New York Times,” the online version is not something to complain about (except for those pesky popup ads, of course).

So I can not only read the column of Frank Rich on Saturday, I can post the link for you long before the print edition hits the streets.

The Swift Boating of Cindy Sheehan

But not for long. Word has it that the Times will begin charging for access to its editorial columnists in September. Guess the new crowd running the show there doesn’t get it as well as the old crowd there when Alabama’s own Howell Raines was running the show.

It’s a regretable change, but we’ll just turn to the Washington Post. Unfortunately, the Washington Post editorial page is terribly boring, and so supportive of George W. Bush and the Iraq War that it has earned the paper the nickname “the Pentagon Post.”

Oh well. Maybe when the changes go through more people will read editorial columns by folks like Locust Fork editor and publisher Glynn Wilson, who is just as informative a writer anyway. See you Sunday.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 20th, 2005 at 10:52 pm and is filed under The Net v. The Web. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.