6.6 Degrees of Separation
August 2, 2008 11:55 AM   Subscribe

Using data from the Microsoft Messenger instant-messaging network, researchers have concluded that "any two people on average are distanced by just 6.6 degrees of separation."

Jure Leskovec and Eric Horvitz presented the results of their study ("Planetary-Scale Views on a Large Instant-Messaging Network") at the 17th International World Wide Web Conference held last April in Beijing. (previously)
posted by Knappster (28 comments total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
There's always at least one half-ass in everyone's network apparently.
posted by yort at 11:57 AM on August 2, 2008


Microsoft Messenger still has seven users?
posted by box at 12:05 PM on August 2, 2008 [3 favorites]


"Microsoft Messenger still has seven users?"

yep, six average people and Kevin Bacon.
posted by HuronBob at 12:12 PM on August 2, 2008 [2 favorites]


I call BS. I've been trying to send my letter to Angelina Jolie for years now, and I haven't heard jack shit.
posted by jimmythefish at 12:19 PM on August 2, 2008


Including, like, Aborigines and stuff?
posted by shakespeherian at 12:19 PM on August 2, 2008


So am I to understand there are unencrypted logs at Microsoft of all my instant messaging conversations? Fucking great.
posted by fusinski at 12:29 PM on August 2, 2008 [1 favorite]


I never used Microsoft Messenger, but if it's anything like AIM, I have to wonder if they discounted spambots and those helpful 3rd-party bots that let you buy movie tickets or find out what the weather is or stuff. Because it seems like that would seriously impact their findings.
posted by shakespeherian at 12:35 PM on August 2, 2008


That's a terrible idea! If I have to discount all my connections through THE LATE JOSEPH MBIRA DICTATOR OF NIGERIA AND HIS TWELVE MILLION DOLLAR ($12,000,000) ESTATE, then I hardly know anybody.
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 12:44 PM on August 2, 2008


I didn't even realize the !Kung were on the Internet.
posted by DU at 12:55 PM on August 2, 2008


As a Microsoft employee, I have to wonder why we're wasting our shareholders' money like that...
posted by Slothrup at 1:02 PM on August 2, 2008


Including, like, Aborigines and stuff?

Little known fact: there's a tech support guy named Orville who works remotely from Papua New Guinea. He's married to a native woman named Alice and is the sole bridge between New Guinea and the world of MS Messenger users. If he dies, the careers of these guys are basically over. I think Microsoft has him under armed guard.
posted by felix betachat at 1:11 PM on August 2, 2008


Felix, you may joke, but years ago (as in the late 80s/early 90s), while the 'Net was still forming, there was a period when the sole connection to Australia was a single 64kbps leased line... As Usenet bloomed, it would regularly be overwhelmed, kicking the entire country off the 'Net for hours at a time!
posted by benzo8 at 1:19 PM on August 2, 2008


This is endlessly stupid. There are almost certainly people who have never contacted the rest of civilization or who have dropped out so many years ago that no one remembers them.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 1:32 PM on August 2, 2008


Microsoft Messenger still has seven users?

Ha. Ha. Ha. MSN Messenger--sorry, Windows Live Messenger--is extremely popular. And, dare I say it, actually a great example of good Microsoft product. It's relatively un-buggy, and does exactly what it claims to do--provide a platform for instant messaging. There's some cruft, but it's easily ignorable.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 1:32 PM on August 2, 2008


lupus_yonderboy: "This is endlessly stupid. There are almost certainly people who have never contacted the rest of civilization or who have dropped out so many years ago that no one remembers them."

Yes, and they're the averaging statistics against the people who actually know each other, and are thus only 1 degree of separation removed...
posted by benzo8 at 1:40 PM on August 2, 2008


Including, like, Aborigines and stuff?

This is endlessly stupid. There are almost certainly people who have never contacted the rest of civilization or who have dropped out so many years ago that no one remembers them.

Actually, the study excludes those who are not online and IM'ing: "Instant-Messagers Really Are About Six Degrees from Kevin Bacon."
posted by ericb at 2:03 PM on August 2, 2008


The researchers do not understand the etymology of the thing they are studying. Kevin Bacon has nothing to do with the six degrees of separation hypothesis, which speaks of any person in real life knowing someone who knows someone who etc. through at most six iterations to any other person in real life, and has nothing to do with movies or Kevin Bacon. And the study is the online version of this idea.

6DS did however inspire the more humorous Kevin Bacon game, which involves any one other movie star and Kevin Bacon and the degrees of separation involving not knowing one another but appearing in the same movie. That is a little easier to study because it's pretty well documented who's appeared on screen in all of Kevin Bacon's movies. And he happens to have had major roles in a hell of a lot of pretty divergent movies.
posted by localroger at 2:31 PM on August 2, 2008


I think the actual average would be about 5 if the rest of you guys forwarded that e-mail as you were supposed to.

I, for one, am wasting all the money I've got in beer.
posted by qvantamon at 2:45 PM on August 2, 2008


I call BS. I've been trying to send my letter to Angelina Jolie for years now, and I haven't heard jack shit.
posted by jimmythefish

Actually, I heard from Kofi Annan the other day that she mentioned it casually in a conversation the other day. She thought you'd give up after a while, but she doesn't want to be rude and say anything directly to you.
posted by micayetoca at 4:00 PM on August 2, 2008


Also, tangentially, the previously on mefi baconizer seems to be R.I.P.
posted by localroger at 4:12 PM on August 2, 2008


Ha. Ha. Ha. MSN Messenger--sorry, Windows Live Messenger--is extremely popular. And, dare I say it, actually a great example of good Microsoft product. It's relatively un-buggy, and does exactly what it claims to do--provide a platform for instant messaging. There's some cruft, but it's easily ignorable.

It's more about where you live. In the States, AOL, and by extension, AIM has the largest market share. In Europe, MSN Messenger is king, probably mostly because nobody really cared for using an IM program called America Online Instant Messenger.

(Also, calling Messenger a good Microsoft product - hah! They still do brain dead things like not saving logs until you actually close the message window, and it has become more and more bloated since it became "upgraded" to Live.)
posted by ymgve at 4:45 PM on August 2, 2008


There are almost certainly people who have never contacted the rest of civilization or who have dropped out so many years ago that no one remembers them.

And who among us has not, on certain days, wanted to be one of those people?
posted by ornate insect at 5:07 PM on August 2, 2008


Hang on, average separation? The whole point of the degrees of separation meme is that the maximum is six, putting everyone within plausible reach of everyone else. If your average comes out as 6.6, then your maximum must be much much higher.

In other words, if you find yourself waking up not next to Angelina Jolie tomorrow, it's all Microsoft Messenger's fault.
posted by cillit bang at 6:00 PM on August 2, 2008


The researchers do not understand the etymology of the thing they are studying.

You do realize that the researchers didn't write the headline of the Washington Post article, don't you?
posted by signal at 6:04 PM on August 2, 2008 [1 favorite]


...the six degrees of separation hypothesis, which speaks of any person in real life knowing someone who knows someone who etc. through at most six iterations to any other person in real life, and has nothing to do with movies...

There has actually been quite a bit of interesting work on the small-world hypothesis using the IMDB.
posted by signal at 6:09 PM on August 2, 2008


signal, it is not possible that there has been any interesting work on the small-world hypothesis via MDB because it is not possible to do any useful work on that idea at all using movies as a medium. I am trying to think of a way to explain this but a piano is about to land on my head so FAIL.
posted by localroger at 7:17 PM on August 2, 2008


Tell you what, read this book, then see if you write something a little more eloquent than "FAIL", ok?
posted by signal at 7:36 PM on August 2, 2008


Hmmm... I don't think the BBC quite understand the underlying technologies involved...
posted by benzo8 at 1:08 AM on August 3, 2008


« Older Soldier's Legacy   |   Reading The OED Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments