six degrees of separation
loreops cultureweb dev
The idea that any two people are connected by a chain of about six acquaintances - and the name of the first social network.
SixDegrees.com launched in 1997 with profiles, friends lists and the ability to see how you connected to any other member: every feature social networks still have. It reached 3.5 million users and failed anyway, because in the late 1990s most of the people those users knew were not online at all. The idea was right and the infrastructure had not arrived.
Also known as: sixdegrees, six degrees
Sources
- SixDegrees.com launch coverage; the first social-networking patent, Andrew Weinreich