Tim Berners-Lee, founder of the World Wide Web, has a great way of putting internet terminology into focus, from his unique vantage point. I reproduce some concepts here for simplification:

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The Net
aka: The Internet (http, nntp, ftp, email), International Information Infrastructure
Era: 1980s-1990s
Realisation:

It isn’t the cables, it is the computers which are interesting

The Web
aka: World Wide Web
Era: 1990s-2000s
Realisation:

It isn’t the computers, but the documents which are interesting

The Social Graph
aka: Web 2.0, semantic web, now
Era: 2000s -
Realisation:

It’s not the documents, it is the things they are about which are important” or “its not about the social networking sites, its about the social network itself

Tim has put things nicely into perspective. I especially agree with the last point: I don’t care about Facebook, but I like what Facebook has taught us thus far and wrote a little ditty about it.

He goes on to say “The less inviting side of sharing is losing some control. Indeed, at each layer — Net, Web, or Graph — we have ceded some control for greater benefits.”