

Microsoft determined that we are all linked by 6.6 degrees of separation - hhm
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/04/are-we-really-s.html

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inconvenient
More like, Microsoft determined that people who chat actively on MSN messenger
are linked by 6.6 degrees of separation. It's just not as interesting a story
with those pesky details added in, is it?

~~~
branden
You're leaving out the pesky detail that an entirely different experiment with
an entirely different sample using an entirely different communication method
yielded a very similar result. This is damn interesting. Not conclusive by any
means, but interesting.

~~~
whughes
A sample of people from Nebraska and Boston. Hardly any better from a global
perspective (indeed, probably worse, since MSN is fairly universal). What
about the 80% of people living in the developing world?

~~~
ibsulon
Consider that they're linked through people like me. I'm personally currently
linked to people born in ten countries off the top of my head, and have
previous links (former coworkers and acquaintances) to at least ten more. I am
two links away to someone in every middle eastern country, nearly every other
Asian country, a few South American countries, and a smattering of Caribbean,
African and European countries.

(I am American, but have a few friends who came to the US to study and work.)

I'm not even particularly well connected.

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Celcius
The reference for the article gives 404 and physorg doesn't seem to have an
article covering the subject. Heres the original paper:
[http://research.microsoft.com/en-
us/um/people/horvitz/leskov...](http://research.microsoft.com/en-
us/um/people/horvitz/leskovec_horvitz_www2008.pdf)

