SixDegrees: Its Development, Impact, and Influences

Hello and thank you for visiting! Let’s discuss the impact of SixDegrees.com….

What is the Six Degrees of Separation Theory?

The Six Degrees Separation Theory was first noted by Hungarian author Frigyes Karinthy in 1929 and later popularized by Irish American playwright John Guare in 1990. Research studies have shown that “any person on the planet can be connected to any other person on the planet through a chain of acquaintances that has no more than five intermediaries” (Rouse, 2019). Basically, we are all a part of an invisible web and we are connected through mutual affiliates. These statistics generated through extensive research are commonly applied to today’s actuality. The theory has not only inspired our digital age but the concept is also the source of many creative games, popular novels and entertaining films.

The History and Development of SixDegrees.com

SixDegrees.com was founded by its CEO Andrew Weinreich in the late spring of 1996 and owned by Microsoft partner, MarcoView from 1996-1999. The site was founded in New York City and gained more than three-million registered users all over various cities. The initial purpose of the site was to allow users to connect with others by creating lists of friends, family members, and acquaintances. Users had the capability of sending invitations to external contacts so that they could join the site as well, saving them to a personal network. In December 1999, Youth Stream Media, a popular marketing services and intergraded media company, bought SixDegrees.com for more than $125 million. The site ended up shutting down the following year, but little did its creators know that they actually sparked the beginning of a social media evolution and that many founders and digital age creators were taking notes!

The Impact of SixDegrees.com

In 2002, Friendster took it’s spot on the social media stage, becoming a smart competitor by implementing some of the same concepts as SixDegrees did. For instance, Friendster “allowed users to make contacts and save them as part of a personal network” (History Cooperative, 2019). Registered users even had the ability to share and post photos, messages, and videos. If they were apart of each other’s network, they were also allowed to post comments on other users’ profiles. Friendster was making quite the buzz as it’s fan base reached over 3 million. But as the old proverb goes, all good things must come to an end– and in 2011 Friendster re-branded itself as a social gaming site, losing many users. As the site shifted its focus to the gaming community, its fan base slowly began to shift its attention elsewhere, leaving the site no choice but to suspend all of its services in 2015. Just four short years later, Friendster officially shut down all operations….

But wait…there’s more!

Although Friendster had a voice in the early 2000’s, other social media competitors earned their spot on stage as well.

In 2003, MySpace was launched, and it rapidly grew into the LARGEST social media networking site on the planet. Surprisingly, MySpace actually may its debut as a platform designed to store files- but creators witnessed the success of social networking and made adjustments to rebuild the site into a social networking system. The site was very promising and in 2005 it was eventually purchased by News Corp (an American multinational mass media corporation) for $5.8 million. After it was purchased, MySpace continued its growth and even approached more than $800 million in revenue. But as the site began making risky business choices, (like entering an advertising agreement with Google and flooding the search engine with ads) Facebook began to flourish. In 2008, Facebook replaced MySpace as the world’s top visited site.

Mark Zuckerberg and several of his colleagues founded Facebook in February 2004. The social media site initially catered to just Harvard students, giving college students a much needed connection to their peers. The founders expanded its brand to the remaining IVY League schools. As its popularity grew, Facebook was eventually made available to anyone above the age of 13 regardless of university affiliation. Today, the site steadily generates $40 billion a year in revenue and is used by billions of users around the world!

How did MySpace and Facebook break barriers, you ask?? Simple, they took notes and applied the same concepts and features implemented by SixDegrees. MySpace practices the sharing of photos, messages, and videos, while Facebook does that plus more. Facebook offers a feature called Suggested Friends, which allows users to find friends based on mutual affiliates, thus functioning under a six degree web concept.

These sites, along with many others, are a reflection of SixDegrees.com, the world’s first social media site. Many of the practices and ideas first introduced by the site play prominent roles in the success of today’s social media sites, but more importantly, they play important roles within our communities. Families are separated by distance and time and unfortunately are sometimes difficult to locate. SixDegrees.com didn’t just spark a social media evolution….it made a path that reunites friends and families.

References

https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/then-and-now-a-history-of-social-networking-sites/2/

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/facebook/8906693/Facebook-cuts-six-degrees-of-separation-to-four.html

History Cooperative. (2019). The History of Social Media: Social Networking Evolution!. [online] Available at: https://historycooperative.org/the-history-of-social-media/

Rouse, M. (2019). What is six degrees of separation? – Definition from WhatIs.com. Retrieved from https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/six-degrees-of-separation