Joomla offers a CMS to run a website on. Joomla uses mysql databases that just hold the information that will be shown on the content pages at the front. The way it is supposed to be used you won't be able to run multiple sites on a single cms.
You can't run 2 websites with different content on that single cms, but you can create multiple front ends on one cms. You could for example store your data using joomla and get it shown at the front using your own code. This way you will be able to have two interfaces / websites on one cms, both running on the same data.
So from what I read in your question I think the answer will be NO, unless you want to just apply another presentation to your data.
My own experience: I have used Joomla to just hold news articles that my web-master will add. I just used php to get those news-articles out of the mysql database and did that to make sure i could get my own presentation for the data displayed.
I actually beg to differ with those people that were so quick to say "NO!!" As of joomla version 1.5.x there are some components that allow you to do just that, most of them being commercial but there's also http://www.janguo.de/lang-en/Downloads/func-finishdown/31/ which is free at the moment. As of joomla version 1.6.x multiple sites will be integrated into joomla.
Joomla offers a CMS to run a website on. Joomla uses mysql databases that just hold the information that will be shown on the content pages at the front. The way it is supposed to be used you won't be able to run multiple sites on a single cms. You can't run 2 websites with different content on that single cms, but you can create multiple front ends on one cms. You could for example store your data using joomla and get it shown at the front using your own code. This way you will be able to have two interfaces / websites on one cms, both running on the same data. So from what I read in your question I think the answer will be NO, unless you want to just apply another presentation to your data.
My own experience: I have used Joomla to just hold news articles that my web-master will add. I just used php to get those news-articles out of the mysql database and did that to make sure i could get my own presentation for the data displayed.
With CNAME record, you could able to mirror a web site to 2+ domains.
If what you need is to have several domains that point to the same Joomla (and to the same content) the answer is YES (see @S.Mark's answer).
If you want to use the same Joomla installation for two different websites (with different content), the answer is NO.
An alternative is to use some Joomla extension, such as:
http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/core-enhancements/multiple-sites/5550
I actually beg to differ with those people that were so quick to say "NO!!" As of joomla version 1.5.x there are some components that allow you to do just that, most of them being commercial but there's also http://www.janguo.de/lang-en/Downloads/func-finishdown/31/ which is free at the moment. As of joomla version 1.6.x multiple sites will be integrated into joomla.
Yes you can, we have done this before. What you need to do is to have two databases though. We have just written about running multiple Joomla websites on the same Joomla installation. Hope you'll find it useful...