Blizzard has been on a roll lately by announcing new projects such as Starcraft 2, Diablo 3, etc. What these games have in common is that they have a free online gaming service known as Battle Net. Battle Net is famous for being simple to use such as chatting and joining games with players from other countries. Now lets take a short history lesson on Battle Net.

Battle Net 2.0

Since Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 are new games being made by Blizzard, they will come with a new version of Battle Net called Battle Net 2.0 and at the moment there are no official news besides rumors. Below is a quote posted by Highways from TeamLiquid.net and you can read the post here.

"Before the announcement of Diablo III, the Diablo related channels of Battle.net were fairly quiet. Hours later, they were jam-packed with players reacquainting themselves with one of PC’s most fondly remembered IPs. Yet Battle.net is a creaky service indeed. Yes, it’s free, but it still lags far behind the online offerings from Xbox Live! and even some of the features of steam. Blizzard promises a complete rejuvenation of Battle.net – which they already refer to as Battle.net 2 – to coincide with the launch of Starcraft II. Specific details? Sadly, Blizzard remains quiet, and the reaction to the colour scheme in Diablo III won’t fill the developer with confidence when it comes to announcing actual important stuff like anti-cheating systems. But we’re promised a much more sophisticated player-finding service, as well as the full suite of features we now take for granted elsewhere. Finding friends, organising matches, reserving space, filtering noobs, it’s all on the to-do list. To impress us though, Blizzard needs to come up with a way to prevent experienced players from re-registering as a newbie so they can stomp true beginners. Is it even possible without the use of rootkits and other unpleasant elements to track how many hours a player has spent with the game? We like to think so. The new Battle.net will also be more explicitly tuned to what Blizzard calls “e-sports” or professional tournaments. The existing ladder system is very mature, so it remains to see this fleshed out and integrated with the burgeoning spectator side of professional play. Starcraft II tournament championships, in real time, on your PC, in engine, only a few clicks away? Yes please!"

In an interview with Rob Pardo of Blizzard, he stated that they will announce new Battle Net features when Starcraft 2 goes into beta (around 2:30 in the video). You can watch the interview here.