Monday, December 17, 2007

Fundamentally Flawed

I have started noticing a group on Facebook called "6 Degrees of Separation - The Experiment"

No, it's not about Kevin Bacon. According to the group's creator, Steve Jackson, it is the "most ambitious facebook experiment ever." I don't think I could explain the purpose of the group quite like Steve himself, so I am reproducing the original description for full comic effect:

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You are invited to take part in the most ambitious facebook experiment ever...

Using the Six Degrees of Separation theory, I want to see if it's possible to contact every single person on facebook. The theory states that everybody on this planet is separated by only six other people. (it could be argued that we're all only six degrees from Larry Page and Sergey Brin - "The Google Guys"... although I'm guessing it's a lot less than that! LOL).

To take part all you have to do is:

1 Join this group.
2 Click on "Invite People to Join" from the menu on the right.
3 Select all your friends (for the experiment to work, you need to do this).
4 Click on "Send invitation"

It's that simple.

All the best,
Steve
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Is this some kind of joke? This "experiment" will only work if every single Facebook user agrees to join a group in the "Just For Fun" category. But if one single Facebook user decides that it would actually be more fun to make the group fail simply by not joining, then the whole endeavor was a flop. All I can say is that registry of the "Facebook Users Boycotting 6 Degrees of Separation" will commence momentarily.

Think I'm bluffing? Well then....jest on, ye skeptics! The "6 Degrees Group" now has 2,692,713 members in several countries, and after 22 days of existence is currently the single largest Facebook group out there.

-Youareyou

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I don't get it - isn't that 1-degree of separation? If everyone is in the group? And isn't that what social nets are about? Being connected to everyone on it? There must be an algorithm or someone other way to prove that we really are already 6 degrees from all other FB users. I dunno. Too much math for me...