Instant-Messagers Really Are About Six Degrees from Kevin Bacon


	Instant-Messagers Really Are About Six Degrees from Kevin Bacon

fuordigital

8-15-2008 8:40 PM

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<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/87afd127-d088-485a-8fd1-0fdd89aaefac/57D504C2-59E5-49D4-BB24-3417D5B04F60/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/01/AR2008080103718_pf.html" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/01/AR2008080103718_pf.html" style="font-size: 11px;">www.washingtonpost.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/01/AR2008080103718_pf.html"><B>Instant-Messagers Really Are About Six Degrees from Kevin Bacon</B></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/01/AR2008080103718_pf.html"><FONT size="-1">By Peter Whoriskey<BR />Washington Post Staff Writer<BR />Saturday, August 2, 2008; A01<BR /></FONT></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/01/AR2008080103718_pf.html"><P>With records of 30 billion electronic conversations among 180 million people from around the world, researchers have concluded that any two people on average are distanced by just 6.6 degrees of separation, meaning that they could be linked by a string of seven or fewer acquaintances.</P></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/01/AR2008080103718_pf.html"><P>The database covered all of the <A target="" href="http://financial.washingtonpost.com/custom/wpost/html-qcn.asp?dispnav=business&mwpage=qcn&symb=MSFT&nav=el">Microsoft</A> Messenger instant-messaging network in June 2006, or roughly half the world's instant-messaging traffic at that time, researchers said.</P></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/01/AR2008080103718_pf.html"><P>For the purposes of their experiment, two people were considered to be acquaintances if they had sent one another a text message. The researchers looked at the minimum chain lengths it would take to connect 180 billion different pairs of users in the database. They found that the average length was 6.6 steps and that 78 percent of the pairs could be connected in seven hops or less.</P></blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/57D504C2-59E5-49D4-BB24-3417D5B04F60/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content8.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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