Six Degrees of Avant-Garde
Have you ever heard of the “six degrees of separation” concept? This idea implies that you’re only six friends-of-a-friend away from any person on the planet — you could quite literally meet anyone you wanted, if you networked enough.
According to this article, researchers have actually proven this idea to be mostly true. It’s a lot to wrap your mind around: that you are less than seven introductions away from anyone you could think of. I chose to investigate the significance of SixDegrees.com in digital history because 1) I find the concept itself and ensuing film/play fascinating and 2) old-age social media intrigues me. It’s a look at our society before we really knew what we had on our hands.
Initially founded in 1997, SixDegrees acted as a precursor to many of the highly used platforms we see today, like LinkedIn and Facebook. Many often cite it as the very first social network. Founder Andrew Weinreich’s Wikipedia Page reports it as the first network on which users could “create a profile, show their friends list, and search through their friends list.” SixDegrees was also the first patented social network. SixDegrees launched shortly after Classmates (which also still exists). It wouldn’t be until 2003 that Mark Zuckerberg introduces FaceMash, the infamous “hot or not” site for Harvard students that eventually turned into a corporation that runs our lives and a memorable feature film. These types of networks focus on tangible, real-life connections through one’s family, work, school, hobbies, and more.
In its heyday, SixDegrees added roughly 4,000 new users every 24 hours. The platform consisted of your personal bulletin board (that’s how you know it was old school internet) and an internal search engine to locate others with similar interests. Users also received a free yourname@USA.net email address and various discounts with partners. There was a catch though — users agreed to share their browser/email cookies, be bombarded with ads, and sample at least one of several online services. SixDegrees also sold users’ demographic information.
SixDegrees.com still exists today, but I was hesitant to join as the homepage looks stuck in the early 2000s and the privacy and ToS pages are blank. Technically, YouthStream Media bought the network for $125 million in 1999, with the network itself shutting down two years later because not enough people were connected to the internet at the time and the internet was not technologically advanced enough to handle this type of service. The Economic Times refers to Six Degrees as “an idea ahead of its time.” I’m not sure anyone really uses this site anymore, but if you’re curious, you can visit it here.
SixDegrees, while seemingly no longer active or viable, plays an important role in the history of social media by being one of the first of its kind. It truly is the peak example of “ahead of its time.” In a 1998 article from the Dallas Morning News, the Andrew Weinreich explains he “know[s] networking works between people… [he’s] just making it more efficient.” Weinreich also mentions the difficulty of keeping the hardware up to date with the site’s quick growth, remarking that “we were going to build the largest database in the world, a place where people can build a virtual community… You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.” Weinreich has since started four other web companies, his most recent of which provides location data to third-party services. Seems like Weinreich is very into using and selling people’s personal data.
We take for granted the modern connections we make through technology. In fact, sometimes, we wish we could stop getting notifications or wonder how in the world we ended up with 2000 Facebook friends when we talk to like five people. It’s fascinating to imagine a time when the internet was undeveloped, like the Wild West. However, it’s clear that since its inception, “free” social networking has used its users as the product.
