The tech business world has forever hyped the idea of "virtual communities," but it appears that the internet is actually making us more connected. Back in 1967, Stanley Milgram (of Milgram Experiment fame), proposed that we are all connected, on average, by six degrees of separation. The idea rapidly entered the popular consciousness, spawning a parlor game, and a hit play (and subsequent movie.) [more inside]
posted by CheeseDigestsAll on Sep 7, 2008 - 10 comments

Six n+1 degrees of separation. Stanley Milgram's famous six degrees of separation a fraud? Judith Kleinfeld thinks so. (1, 2)
posted by loquacious on Sep 12, 2006 - 50 comments

Operation Find Don Operation Find Don. Sars, of Tomato Nation, is looking for a man that she met near the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, and she's asking her readers for help. All she knows about him is that he lives in Jersey City and that September 11 is his birthday. Can a six degrees of internet separation approach work?
posted by amarynth on Sep 11, 2003 - 8 comments

Buddyzoo is an interesting new site that lets you see which buddies on your AIM buddy list your buddies share with you. Sort of like a six degrees of seperation kind of thing. Very neat. Go check it out and sign up! And tell your friends!
posted by aznblader on Apr 15, 2003 - 13 comments

Kevin Bacon and Bill Gates spawn love child. In a surprisingly un-clumsy attempt to a) figure out what teens really like to do online, b) create an app to tap into this behavior, and c) rule world, a skunkworks project inside MS has beta released the surprisingly clued-in threedegrees. It most literally rocks.
posted by i blame your mother on Feb 25, 2003 - 33 comments

Stanley Milgram invented the term "six degrees of separation" after discovering in an experiment how closely interconnected social networks can be. The "six degrees" concept also inspired a play, a film, and a party game. The original study has recently attracted criticism, but now sociologists at Columbia University are planning to re-do the study over the Internet, using e-mail forwarding. Volunteers can sign up here.
posted by jonp72 on Jan 14, 2003 - 25 comments

6 degrees of email. A project is going on to test the 6 degrees theory. And it occured to me that something like this could be done on the web. Is it possible to go from any web site to any other in 6 links? (More inside)
posted by Steven Den Beste on Jan 23, 2002 - 27 comments

Small World Research Project After all the work we've done training newbies not to use the Internet for their chain letters (via this New York Times article)
posted by dgeiser13 on Dec 20, 2001 - 4 comments

The Oracle of Bacon is prehaps the greatest waste of time ever. Go from Akira Kurasowa to Kevin Bacon in just three degrees of seperation.
posted by SweetJesus on Dec 11, 2001 - 23 comments