The usual definition I run across, weak as it is, is a network of networks connected through shared protocols, specifically TCP/IP. It gets increasingly complicated and problematic now that mobile phones and other technologies that are not exactly what we think of as "computers" are internet connected as well. When we started this association, we were critiqued for casting the net too narrow by calling it the Association of INTERNET researchers. Rob Kling (who keynoted out first meeting) and I had a conversation, for instance, in which he argued that phenomena such as banking networks which contain/transfer most of the world's economy yet are not "the internet" are extremely important and shouldn't be set outside of "internet" studies. One of our longest time members once commented to me that she was getting increasingly interested in interactive gaming via gaming consoles, but wasn't sure it was appropriate work for AoIR since it wasn't technically "internet." Although these are important and accurate definitional critiques, in practice I think that "internet" has come to be one of those terms that has no precise meaning, yet which continues (for now) to function effectively to lend coherence to a variety of differing yet related phenomena. I would not be surprised to find the term rendered completely meaningless in the future, though. Nancy