Microsoft’s ‘Six Degrees of Separation’ experiment
Microsoft have used their MSN network to study the Six Degrees of Separation theory and seem to think the average number is about six after all. Which I could have told them anyway…
The good news is my Six Degrees Facebook application gets a mention at the bottom of the Guardian article.
BBC NEWS | Technology | Study revives six degrees theory
Proof! Just six degrees of separation between us
Six Degrees of Separation on Facebook
One Reply to “Microsoft’s ‘Six Degrees of Separation’ experiment”
Hi Karl,
Quick thought: Would it be possible to calculate the average number of connections between a given individual and all of the other individuals in a community, such as a university (kind of like an Erdos-Bacon number), using something like Facebook? I wonder if this has been done already. I would guess that this number would vary significantly from one person to another, and could be used to measure the “connectedness” of a given individual in a given community.
I would be very interested to hear your thoughts.
-Dennis