WEBVTT - Sixdegrees.com: A Social Media Origin Story 0:00:01.440 --> 0:00:07.680 Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.360 --> 0:00:13.920 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, there's Chuck, 0:00:14.160 --> 0:00:16.240 here's Jerry, and we're going to take a nice little 0:00:16.239 --> 0:00:19.720 stroll down Internet memory lane parent stuff. 0:00:19.400 --> 0:00:22.880 You should Yeah, this is something I had never heard of. 0:00:22.960 --> 0:00:23.599 Had you heard of this? 0:00:25.040 --> 0:00:28.360 No? I ran it past. You mean she's like, oh, man, yes, 0:00:28.440 --> 0:00:29.960 I think I've heard of it, and I don't know 0:00:30.000 --> 0:00:30.640 if she has or no. 0:00:31.040 --> 0:00:32.800 Well, you mean is an early adopter. 0:00:33.479 --> 0:00:36.360 Yeah. She was definitely more Internetti than I was at 0:00:36.360 --> 0:00:36.840 that time. 0:00:37.159 --> 0:00:41.400 Yeah. So what we're talking about here is the first 0:00:41.400 --> 0:00:45.040 what's regarded as the first social media website, the thing 0:00:45.080 --> 0:00:49.680 that started the degradation of all mankind. Way back in 0:00:49.760 --> 0:00:52.519 nineteen ninety seven. It was called six degrees dot com 0:00:53.560 --> 0:00:57.560 spelled out SixDegrees dot com. I was founded by a 0:00:57.560 --> 0:01:02.200 guy named Andrew Weinreich and for about three years in 0:01:02.240 --> 0:01:06.119 the late nineties they were able to come online when 0:01:06.560 --> 0:01:10.119 a ton of people were online, and garner ultimately about 0:01:10.120 --> 0:01:14.200 three and a half million users, which it pales in 0:01:14.200 --> 0:01:17.000 comparison to what we look at today, but for the 0:01:17.080 --> 0:01:18.160 time wasn't too bad. 0:01:19.240 --> 0:01:21.920 Yeah, not too shabby. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough to get 0:01:21.920 --> 0:01:25.120 them over the hump and give them staying power. But 0:01:25.200 --> 0:01:27.520 I think they were also a victim of timing, as 0:01:27.560 --> 0:01:30.960 we'll see, Yeah for sure, but yes, the deck was 0:01:31.000 --> 0:01:34.200 stacked against them, and the fact that they were essentially 0:01:34.440 --> 0:01:36.520 very much ahead of their time. They were a social 0:01:36.560 --> 0:01:41.640 media site before there were enough people online, not just 0:01:41.760 --> 0:01:44.160 enough people to come and use your social media site. 0:01:44.720 --> 0:01:47.280 There was only something like I mean, if they had 0:01:47.280 --> 0:01:49.920 three and a half million users, there's probably like three 0:01:49.960 --> 0:01:52.560 point six million users on all of the Internet at 0:01:52.600 --> 0:01:55.279 a time. I don't know if that's a correct estimate, 0:01:55.320 --> 0:01:59.480 but something like eighteen percent of households according to the 0:01:59.600 --> 0:02:03.280 US in nineteen ninety seven when six degrees launched, only 0:02:03.360 --> 0:02:05.920 eighteen percent had internet at home at the time. 0:02:06.360 --> 0:02:11.000 Yeah, there's a it was a competing stat from Pew 0:02:11.040 --> 0:02:14.639 Research Center that said thirty six percent did, but there 0:02:14.760 --> 0:02:18.160 was different methodologies and stuff. So let's just say, you know, 0:02:18.320 --> 0:02:20.359 somewhere in between those numbers, I bet it was more 0:02:20.520 --> 0:02:26.720 more like eighteen. This was you know, ninety seven was one, two, three, four, 0:02:26.760 --> 0:02:30.720 five years before Prinster launched Princester. That's hard to say 0:02:30.760 --> 0:02:34.679 for some reason. And but by that time the percentage 0:02:34.720 --> 0:02:37.200 of people in two thousand and two that had flipped. 0:02:37.240 --> 0:02:41.079 It was more like thirty nine percent of people did 0:02:41.080 --> 0:02:43.880 not use the internet, and sixty one percent of people did. 0:02:44.800 --> 0:02:47.560 So it was right at that, you know, it was 0:02:47.560 --> 0:02:49.079 just terrible timing, right there at the end of the 0:02:49.160 --> 0:02:53.040 nineties when the dot com bubble burst, and just right 0:02:53.080 --> 0:02:56.000 on its heels, other sites came along that did far, 0:02:56.040 --> 0:02:56.520 far better. 0:02:57.440 --> 0:03:00.560 Yeah, and just one thing, I like that Pew Data 0:03:00.720 --> 0:03:03.240 because it doesn't have like that small slice of like 0:03:03.320 --> 0:03:06.120 don't know, not sure. It's either yes, I use it 0:03:06.200 --> 0:03:10.200 or I don't use it. It's a nice solid survey agreed. 0:03:10.840 --> 0:03:14.200 So yeah, so there's a lot of what ifs could 0:03:14.240 --> 0:03:16.960 have been kind of thing, and we'll get into those 0:03:17.000 --> 0:03:19.600 a little bit more. But there were more things that 0:03:21.080 --> 0:03:24.280 six degrees was up against. Another really really big one 0:03:24.919 --> 0:03:28.120 was the slow speed of internet. Yeah, and you know 0:03:28.520 --> 0:03:31.240 today you might look back and think, well, we had 0:03:31.320 --> 0:03:34.920 no comparison back then, didn't matter. It was so slow 0:03:35.320 --> 0:03:39.280 that it would make you angry waiting around for a 0:03:39.280 --> 0:03:42.720 song to download or a web page to even load. 0:03:43.720 --> 0:03:47.240 There were transfer speeds using dial up modems of fifty 0:03:47.280 --> 0:03:50.840 six kilobytes per second that was what you had to 0:03:50.840 --> 0:03:55.080 deal with, not a gig per second, a kilobyte times 0:03:55.080 --> 0:03:58.280 fifty six per second. That was the transfer speed at 0:03:58.280 --> 0:03:59.920 the time, and that was the maximum. 0:04:00.280 --> 0:04:02.520 Yeah, I mean we've laughed about it before, but just 0:04:02.600 --> 0:04:08.280 the days of just seeing a picture appear on the 0:04:08.320 --> 0:04:12.320 screen like three lines at a time, down, down, down, 0:04:12.360 --> 0:04:13.880 and you're just I just want to know what this 0:04:13.920 --> 0:04:16.600 thing looks like. And if you wanted to know, you 0:04:16.680 --> 0:04:18.359 had just sit there for five minutes or whatever. 0:04:18.720 --> 0:04:20.800 Yeah, I mean you had time to go make and 0:04:20.839 --> 0:04:23.680 eat toast, Yeah while a picture was downloading. 0:04:23.920 --> 0:04:25.279 Yeah, I hate a lot of toast back then. 0:04:25.760 --> 0:04:29.400 So that was that was a big challenge for it too. 0:04:29.720 --> 0:04:31.440 And then one of the other problems too is we'll 0:04:31.480 --> 0:04:33.680 see is that people I mean, if you have a 0:04:33.680 --> 0:04:36.720 social media so it's kind of helpful to have pictures, 0:04:37.360 --> 0:04:39.440 and they just weren't around at the time. 0:04:40.120 --> 0:04:42.920 Yeah, and we'll we'll get to that all the reasons 0:04:42.920 --> 0:04:45.599 why in a minute, but just to sort of, you know, 0:04:45.760 --> 0:04:49.480 locate it on the timeline in nineteen ninety seven when 0:04:49.480 --> 0:04:52.360 at launch, like Google dot com had just registered as 0:04:52.400 --> 0:04:55.080 a domain, so it wasn't even a real thing yet. 0:04:56.080 --> 0:04:59.279 The word weblog had just been coined or you know 0:04:59.320 --> 0:05:02.839 what it would become is blog and Netflix was sending 0:05:02.920 --> 0:05:05.760 DVDs through the mail. So remember that it seems like 0:05:05.839 --> 0:05:08.880 a thousand years ago, but it wasn't that long ago 0:05:09.040 --> 0:05:10.239 in the grand scheme of things. 0:05:10.560 --> 0:05:13.680 No, and it's kind of sad that six degrees has 0:05:13.760 --> 0:05:16.200 kind of gotten lost to history. Most people think Friendster 0:05:16.920 --> 0:05:20.320 was the first social media site. No, six degrees was, 0:05:20.560 --> 0:05:23.719 and it wasn't even one of those things where it's 0:05:23.839 --> 0:05:27.480 technically the first social media site, even though it really 0:05:27.600 --> 0:05:30.200 was not. It didn't resemble social media at all. No, 0:05:30.560 --> 0:05:32.640 this was the first social media site, and it essentially 0:05:32.680 --> 0:05:35.440 laid the groundwork for all the social media sites to come. 0:05:35.800 --> 0:05:38.280 It just was so far ahead of its time that 0:05:38.360 --> 0:05:40.120 it got lost to history. 0:05:40.480 --> 0:05:43.719 Yeah. For sure, Friendster ultimately got about ten million, but 0:05:43.720 --> 0:05:46.159 they had a lot of technical problems, so they didn't last. 0:05:47.240 --> 0:05:50.000 MySpace was the next big one. In two thousand and three, 0:05:50.720 --> 0:05:53.839 they were the first to reach a million monthly active users, 0:05:53.880 --> 0:05:57.040 which was a big deal. Some people say that at 0:05:57.040 --> 0:05:59.120 one point it was the most popular site in the 0:05:59.240 --> 0:05:59.920 United States. 0:06:00.360 --> 0:06:00.919 I believe that. 0:06:01.240 --> 0:06:03.839 Yeah, yeah, even if only for a brief amount of time. 0:06:04.640 --> 0:06:06.800 But then in two thousand and eight, Facebook came along 0:06:06.839 --> 0:06:10.720 and sort of smashed everything, and just to put a perspective, 0:06:10.760 --> 0:06:14.600 three and a half million users for six degrees. Facebook 0:06:14.600 --> 0:06:18.839 has more than three billion users and Blue Sky has 0:06:18.920 --> 0:06:21.360 thirty three million, and that's looked at as like a 0:06:21.440 --> 0:06:22.000 tiny thing. 0:06:23.240 --> 0:06:25.480 Yeah for sure. So yeah, it kind of puts their 0:06:25.480 --> 0:06:29.400 three and a half million users into perspective. Yeah, so 0:06:29.920 --> 0:06:35.160 six degrees may sound familiar to people. It's actually very 0:06:35.240 --> 0:06:38.440 much related to the six Degrees of Kevin Bacon or 0:06:38.800 --> 0:06:43.920 six Degrees of Separation that play by John Gwayer and 0:06:43.960 --> 0:06:47.880 then later the movie adaptations starring Stockard Channing, of course, 0:06:49.240 --> 0:06:51.760 but it's actually I didn't realize this based on a 0:06:51.880 --> 0:06:56.000 study that Stanley Milgram, of the very famous Milgram experiment 0:06:56.080 --> 0:07:00.400 where he had people shock some unseen person in another 0:07:00.480 --> 0:07:04.919 room to find out just how obedient people were to authority, 0:07:05.000 --> 0:07:07.920 even against their own set of morals. You know that one, right. 0:07:08.279 --> 0:07:09.039 Yeah. 0:07:09.240 --> 0:07:11.560 He also carried out a study where he was one 0:07:11.600 --> 0:07:14.480 of the first to kind of determine how far apart 0:07:14.600 --> 0:07:17.559 the average person was from the other from anybody else 0:07:17.680 --> 0:07:18.320 in the world. 0:07:18.760 --> 0:07:22.239 Yeah, he got together with another psych professor named Jeffrey 0:07:22.360 --> 0:07:25.880 Travers and This is pretty cool. I think it was 0:07:26.000 --> 0:07:28.760 pretty low fi way to do it. But this is 0:07:28.880 --> 0:07:31.400 I mean, what year was this. Was this the nineteen. 0:07:31.200 --> 0:07:34.200 Fifties, No, it was the late sixties. 0:07:33.880 --> 0:07:36.680 Late sixties, okay. But what they did was they said, 0:07:36.720 --> 0:07:39.320 all right, let's get some people in Kansas. Let's get 0:07:39.360 --> 0:07:42.880 some people in Nebraska. They said, here's a folder and 0:07:42.920 --> 0:07:46.320 it has a document with a target person that we 0:07:46.400 --> 0:07:49.480 want you to get this to them. But you can't 0:07:49.520 --> 0:07:51.560 just look them up and see if you can find 0:07:51.560 --> 0:07:53.480 their address and mail it to them. One of the 0:07:53.480 --> 0:07:57.320 people was in Cambridge, one was in Sharon, Massachusetts, and 0:07:57.360 --> 0:07:59.320 they said, what you want to do, or what we 0:07:59.360 --> 0:08:02.800 want you to do, is send it to a person 0:08:03.480 --> 0:08:06.400 that you personally know who you think might be able 0:08:06.480 --> 0:08:09.160 to get it to another person who could get it 0:08:09.200 --> 0:08:11.840 to another person who could eventually get it to this 0:08:12.040 --> 0:08:16.640 target person. And then we will measure that and see 0:08:16.800 --> 0:08:20.200 what the average or the mean might be. So literally, 0:08:20.560 --> 0:08:24.160 a farmer in Kansas got it, you know, this is 0:08:24.160 --> 0:08:25.760 just one example. Got it to the wife of a 0:08:25.800 --> 0:08:29.520 student Massachusetts, who gave it to an Episcopalian minister in 0:08:29.560 --> 0:08:32.320 this town, who gave it to an instructor at the 0:08:32.320 --> 0:08:35.760 theological seminary there who got it to that target? So 0:08:35.840 --> 0:08:40.679 that would be one, two, three, four degrees of separation, 0:08:41.080 --> 0:08:43.800 which is pretty remarkable. 0:08:43.240 --> 0:08:45.880 I think yeah. And I also think chok that it's 0:08:45.960 --> 0:08:50.120 kind of funny that to Stanley Milgram, Nebraska and Kansas 0:08:50.200 --> 0:08:52.960 are the most socially remote locations in all of the 0:08:53.080 --> 0:08:57.560 United States, because that's where he started to see how 0:08:57.640 --> 0:09:01.000 long it took to get to I guess civilis like Boston. 0:09:01.640 --> 0:09:04.880 But they actually did a lot of analysis of this. 0:09:05.000 --> 0:09:08.439 They released a version of the study in Psychology Today, 0:09:08.480 --> 0:09:10.400 which was meant for a general audience. But then they 0:09:10.440 --> 0:09:13.760 did like the real deal in a journal called Sociometry 0:09:14.360 --> 0:09:16.880 in nineteen sixty nine, and they found that there was 0:09:17.240 --> 0:09:22.600 a mean length mean is the one in the middle. No, 0:09:22.840 --> 0:09:25.559 mean is average, it's another word for average, just say average, 0:09:25.559 --> 0:09:30.280 you know, of four point four to five point seven intermediary. 0:09:30.400 --> 0:09:33.800 So they found that people have a degree of separation 0:09:33.840 --> 0:09:36.280 of four point four to five point seven. And this 0:09:36.360 --> 0:09:38.520 was all the way back in the mid to late sixties. 0:09:38.800 --> 0:09:40.840 Think about how closer we are now. 0:09:41.000 --> 0:09:44.440 Yeah. Well, what I wonder too is did they throw 0:09:44.520 --> 0:09:47.040 out the ones? Because apparently most of the folders never 0:09:47.080 --> 0:09:49.360 even made it. Did they just toss those and say, 0:09:49.600 --> 0:09:52.040 of the ones who got there, this is how they're connected. 0:09:53.000 --> 0:09:56.240 Yes, but I believe that most of the ones that 0:09:56.320 --> 0:09:59.800 didn't get there were because the initial farmers in Kansas 0:09:59.840 --> 0:10:03.520 and Nebraska just threw them out. They didn't participate. Oh really, 0:10:03.679 --> 0:10:05.760 I think that's what happened to the majority of them. 0:10:05.840 --> 0:10:08.280 So yeah, it wasn't like the most robust study of 0:10:08.280 --> 0:10:10.520 all time, but it was so fascinating that it just 0:10:10.600 --> 0:10:14.480 captured the imagination of people and became kind of a 0:10:14.520 --> 0:10:18.160 pop cultural meme. But what's interesting about it is that 0:10:18.280 --> 0:10:23.359 later scholarship that was pretty robust studies supported what Milgram 0:10:23.440 --> 0:10:27.560 and his collaborator Jeffrey Travers found in that study. 0:10:27.920 --> 0:10:29.480 Yeah, there was one in two thousand and three that 0:10:29.520 --> 0:10:34.440 found a media of five to seven. This is pretty 0:10:34.480 --> 0:10:38.160 old data. But in twenty eleven they did the degrees 0:10:38.160 --> 0:10:40.960 of separation on other social media sites, and for Facebook 0:10:40.960 --> 0:10:43.360 at the time, it was four point seventy four and 0:10:43.400 --> 0:10:46.440 for the at the time named Twitter it was four 0:10:46.440 --> 0:10:51.800 point sixty seven. But the caveat there is like you're 0:10:51.840 --> 0:10:55.520 not necessarily counting just the people that you know, Like, 0:10:55.559 --> 0:10:58.040 I know plenty of people when I was on Facebook 0:10:58.600 --> 0:11:03.600 that had lots of like what were they in Facebook? Friends? Yeah, 0:11:03.679 --> 0:11:05.880 friends who they had no idea who they were. It 0:11:05.920 --> 0:11:08.440 was just more of a maybe a networking thing kind 0:11:08.480 --> 0:11:09.120 of like LinkedIn. 0:11:10.000 --> 0:11:12.520 Yeah, for sure. And as we'll see six degrees too. 0:11:13.080 --> 0:11:17.400 Yeah yeah. Laura doctor Claw, who helped us out with this, 0:11:17.480 --> 0:11:20.680 points out that social media kind of has a stretch 0:11:20.920 --> 0:11:23.480 the definition of what we consider a connection. Like you 0:11:23.520 --> 0:11:26.680 just said, and also you said, what used to be 0:11:26.720 --> 0:11:30.000 called Twitter. I think it's hilarious because very frequently you'll 0:11:30.000 --> 0:11:33.920 see Twitter used in like some sort of article or whatever, 0:11:34.000 --> 0:11:36.320 and then in parentheses after that it'll say X. 0:11:36.840 --> 0:11:40.719 Yeah, and I mean everyone still says Twitter. It seems like, yeah, 0:11:41.120 --> 0:11:42.000 it just didn't take. 0:11:42.360 --> 0:11:46.000 Like sorry, the name change for the business you bought 0:11:46.200 --> 0:11:46.960 did not take. 0:11:47.600 --> 0:11:48.880 Yeah, it's because X is dumb. 0:11:49.320 --> 0:11:51.840 I guess. So Twitter was just so perfect. 0:11:51.880 --> 0:11:53.680 I guess well, I mean, I don't know if Twitter 0:11:53.760 --> 0:11:57.000 is a good name or not, but it had such recognition. 0:11:57.240 --> 0:12:01.080 It's just like, Yeah, it's like the people who bought 0:12:01.080 --> 0:12:03.280 the Sears Tower and try to change the name and 0:12:03.280 --> 0:12:05.600 everybody's like, nope, still Sears Tower. Sorry. 0:12:06.080 --> 0:12:08.079 Yeah. I love that when a corporate sponsor takes over 0:12:08.120 --> 0:12:09.360 and they're like, no, we're still going to call it 0:12:09.400 --> 0:12:10.040 the thing at once. 0:12:09.920 --> 0:12:14.760 Before it's still the Toastedos Fiesta Bowl. Sorry, sorry, cars 0:12:14.800 --> 0:12:15.439 dot Com. 0:12:16.400 --> 0:12:19.480 Well, you mentioned Kevin Bacon and we should mention real quick. 0:12:19.520 --> 0:12:21.640 The six Degrees of Kevin Bacon was a very popular 0:12:21.679 --> 0:12:25.040 thing created by some college students, where in the ideas 0:12:25.120 --> 0:12:27.640 that Kevin Bacon has been in so many varied movies 0:12:27.679 --> 0:12:30.480 over the years that you can connect any actor in 0:12:30.520 --> 0:12:34.880 Hollywood to Kevin Bacon in less than six degrees or less. 0:12:35.960 --> 0:12:38.840 But the Bacon number apparently is three point one two, 0:12:38.880 --> 0:12:43.360 and they're five hundred and twenty two actors who have 0:12:43.640 --> 0:12:47.240 a smaller connectivity number or Bacon number than that. 0:12:47.640 --> 0:12:50.760 Yeah, they're more connected to people than Kevin Bacon. I 0:12:50.840 --> 0:12:52.760 didn't know that, Chuck, did. 0:12:52.600 --> 0:12:56.880 You, Well there were five hundred and twenty two, or 0:12:56.920 --> 0:13:00.560 that there were more connected actors both. I figured there 0:13:00.559 --> 0:13:04.520 were more connected actors because there are people, well, Eric 0:13:04.600 --> 0:13:07.360 Roberts is the number one with two point nine zero 0:13:07.400 --> 0:13:10.199 eight four one because he has eight hundred and sixty 0:13:10.240 --> 0:13:14.760 five IMDb entries as an actor. So I figured there 0:13:14.760 --> 0:13:16.840 were people that were in way more movies. And that's 0:13:16.920 --> 0:13:18.320 just Matt, You know. 0:13:18.840 --> 0:13:21.559 Sure it is. But also you can make a case 0:13:21.600 --> 0:13:25.920 that Kevin Bacon's one hundred and eleven movies typically are 0:13:26.000 --> 0:13:30.000 with more stars who have more work, So there it's 0:13:30.240 --> 0:13:32.360 likelier that the people he work with are in more 0:13:32.400 --> 0:13:36.280 movies with more other people, whereas Eric Roberts is probably 0:13:36.320 --> 0:13:38.040 in movies with people like this is their one and 0:13:38.120 --> 0:13:40.960 only movie. 0:13:40.040 --> 0:13:42.280 Or people who are in like six hundred movies that 0:13:42.360 --> 0:13:43.480 you just have never heard of. 0:13:43.760 --> 0:13:47.080 That's true too, That's possible if Rifftrek taught me anything. 0:13:47.120 --> 0:13:50.679 It's that. Yeah, Like I know who Cameron Mitchell is 0:13:50.720 --> 0:13:53.520 for Pete's sake, is that he's one of those guys 0:13:53.520 --> 0:13:55.120 who's in a million movies that you've. 0:13:54.920 --> 0:13:57.239 Never heard of, but you recognize his face. 0:13:57.440 --> 0:14:00.640 Face name. Yeah, I think I actually know some of 0:14:00.679 --> 0:14:01.560 his family members. 0:14:01.600 --> 0:14:04.160 Now right, I'm gonna have to look this guy up. 0:14:04.480 --> 0:14:07.160 Yeah, oh man, it will take you on an odyssey. 0:14:07.280 --> 0:14:10.360 And don't even bother watching the original version of the movies. 0:14:10.440 --> 0:14:13.040 Just watch the riff track version of Cameron Mitchell's movies. 0:14:14.000 --> 0:14:17.720 Uh a rare in store or in show. Look up 0:14:17.760 --> 0:14:21.040 Cameron Mitchell. Huh oh no, he's a restaurateur. 0:14:22.000 --> 0:14:26.120 That's not him. Look at Cameron Mitchell's Space Mutiny. 0:14:26.640 --> 0:14:28.520 Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know that guy. Was he in 0:14:28.560 --> 0:14:30.120 Plan nine? 0:14:30.320 --> 0:14:32.120 Maybe he really might have been? 0:14:32.520 --> 0:14:34.240 Well, and now I'm seeing a picture of him as 0:14:34.280 --> 0:14:37.160 an older gentleman, and I've seen him in movies as 0:14:37.160 --> 0:14:38.160 an older gentleman too. 0:14:38.560 --> 0:14:41.360 Speaking of Space Mutiny, that's a really great rift tracks 0:14:41.400 --> 0:14:42.000 to start with. 0:14:42.520 --> 0:14:43.440 Those guys are the best. 0:14:44.040 --> 0:14:46.480 And wait, actually I think that's an MST three K 0:14:46.640 --> 0:14:49.160 to start watch both versions? How about that? 0:14:49.360 --> 0:14:50.720 All right, well that's what I meant. 0:14:50.720 --> 0:14:54.280 But yeah, okay, so do you want to take a break, Chuck. 0:14:54.520 --> 0:14:56.640 Yeah, let's take a break and talk more about old 0:14:56.640 --> 0:14:57.760 Internet right after. 0:14:57.600 --> 0:15:27.320 This, okay, Chuck. So we said we were going to 0:15:27.400 --> 0:15:31.320 take a stroll down Internet memory lane. And this was 0:15:31.360 --> 0:15:35.240 a time when, like I think the year before six 0:15:35.280 --> 0:15:39.920 degrees launched, Craigslist launched, Amazon dot Com launched, and they 0:15:39.960 --> 0:15:43.360 were just selling books at the time. Yeah. One of 0:15:43.400 --> 0:15:47.320 the big search engines was ask Jeeves, and it was 0:15:47.440 --> 0:15:50.520 revolutionary because you could use natural language rather than have 0:15:50.600 --> 0:15:53.480 to figure out exactly what keyword you needed to put 0:15:53.520 --> 0:15:57.840 in to get results with licos. Yeah, yeah, totally, which, 0:15:57.840 --> 0:16:00.400 by the way, asked Jesus, ask dot com. Did you 0:16:00.440 --> 0:16:00.680 know that? 0:16:01.680 --> 0:16:03.240 I think I did know that. I knew it changed 0:16:03.240 --> 0:16:06.680 into something. They just got rid of Jeeves, which is 0:16:06.800 --> 0:16:07.400 super sad. 0:16:07.600 --> 0:16:10.200 I know, it is pretty sad. They retired him. He 0:16:10.280 --> 0:16:12.800 went off to live on a farm, as they say, yeah, 0:16:12.840 --> 0:16:14.120 which means they killed him. 0:16:15.520 --> 0:16:18.600 How six degrees worked, though, is interesting because not only 0:16:19.400 --> 0:16:23.160 was it the name copped from six degrees of separation, 0:16:23.800 --> 0:16:27.280 they actually organized the website in such a way and 0:16:27.320 --> 0:16:30.560 it seemed like part of the fun of it. And again, 0:16:30.840 --> 0:16:33.240 this is early Internet. If you're a youngster out there, 0:16:33.320 --> 0:16:35.240 you may think this is super funny that people thought 0:16:35.280 --> 0:16:37.520 this was fun, But it seems like part of the 0:16:37.520 --> 0:16:41.400 fund SixDegrees dot com was finding people you didn't know 0:16:41.560 --> 0:16:44.160 and then tracing that connection through the website. 0:16:45.240 --> 0:16:48.280 Right. So one of the things that you would do 0:16:48.440 --> 0:16:51.280 is go through the I guess the registry of other 0:16:51.360 --> 0:16:55.040 six degree users, and there were so few initially that 0:16:55.120 --> 0:16:57.880 you could do that. Rather than go through three and 0:16:57.920 --> 0:17:00.680 a half million people, it was just a few hundred potentially, 0:17:00.800 --> 0:17:02.520 and you'd be like, oh, I know them, I know them, 0:17:02.720 --> 0:17:04.760 and you would make a connection with them. They would 0:17:04.800 --> 0:17:08.480 confirm it, and now you were a first degree connection. 0:17:08.920 --> 0:17:11.560 You two were because you actually know each other. 0:17:11.440 --> 0:17:14.119 Right, yeah, and you, like you said, you had to 0:17:14.119 --> 0:17:17.080 confirm that connection. But you could also include people who 0:17:17.160 --> 0:17:19.280 weren't on it yet, like I'm just going to list 0:17:19.320 --> 0:17:21.240 out my family members or whatever and put their email 0:17:21.240 --> 0:17:24.320 addresses in. Keep in mind, this is at a time 0:17:24.720 --> 0:17:27.560 where you didn't get a lot of email. You didn't 0:17:27.560 --> 0:17:30.239 get much, if any spam email, and sometimes getting an 0:17:30.240 --> 0:17:32.560 email was like, oh wow, look at this, this is cool. 0:17:32.680 --> 0:17:33.160 It's cool. 0:17:33.200 --> 0:17:35.960 So if you think about that now, like oh yeah, 0:17:36.000 --> 0:17:37.479 just put all your family and friends and put their 0:17:37.480 --> 0:17:42.840 emails in. That's like a fireable offense, like socially. 0:17:42.520 --> 0:17:43.280 You go to jail. 0:17:43.680 --> 0:17:45.560 I think you can. But back then it was a 0:17:45.560 --> 0:17:48.560 different deal. So you can include people put their emails 0:17:49.240 --> 0:17:52.600 and they would get an email asking for confirmation and 0:17:52.640 --> 0:17:54.639 saying and also, do you want to sign up for 0:17:54.640 --> 0:17:57.280 the school new thing? No, yeah, exactly. 0:17:58.000 --> 0:18:01.040 So the people that knew the people you knew, but 0:18:01.119 --> 0:18:03.560 you weren't directly connected to them, you were now second 0:18:03.640 --> 0:18:06.560 degree connected with them. And then those people were connected 0:18:06.600 --> 0:18:08.359 to people that you didn't know, and they were third 0:18:08.400 --> 0:18:12.240 degree connections. I think it didn't go beyond third degree, 0:18:12.720 --> 0:18:14.240 Like they didn't go all the way up to six. 0:18:14.400 --> 0:18:18.800 I think that was totally unnecessary. But this was like, yeah, 0:18:18.800 --> 0:18:21.439 this is very groundbreaking and revolutionary, and people were just 0:18:21.480 --> 0:18:25.520 amazed by people they knew. And the point was like, 0:18:25.760 --> 0:18:27.680 who do your friends know that you want to know 0:18:27.760 --> 0:18:29.840 that you don't know yet. Now you can make a 0:18:29.880 --> 0:18:33.000 first degree connection with those people if they confirm you. 0:18:33.760 --> 0:18:35.680 Yeah, I mean that's the way. It was sort of 0:18:35.720 --> 0:18:38.879 like a predecessor to LinkedIn. I mean, you'll see again, 0:18:38.960 --> 0:18:41.760 like you said, like seeds of all the social media websites. 0:18:41.800 --> 0:18:44.600 They were doing it because you could create a profile 0:18:45.119 --> 0:18:50.120 with your professional affiliations and stuff like that. You were 0:18:50.200 --> 0:18:52.679 encouraged and I think most people probably really did use 0:18:52.720 --> 0:18:55.520 their real identities because at the time people were like, well, 0:18:55.520 --> 0:18:58.840 what kind of a weirdo would just create some fake 0:18:58.920 --> 0:19:02.040 identity on the internet just to mess with people. So 0:19:02.160 --> 0:19:05.720 there were real people on there. That was a member 0:19:05.760 --> 0:19:09.840 of the trust E Data Privacy Program, which has now 0:19:10.600 --> 0:19:14.640 been bundled up under trust ARC. But email was very 0:19:14.640 --> 0:19:16.919 central to it all. It was not an app. They 0:19:16.920 --> 0:19:19.680 didn't have apps yet. You would get an email asking 0:19:19.720 --> 0:19:23.120 for confirmation, you would reply via email. You would add 0:19:23.160 --> 0:19:26.160 others via email, so it was just a different time. 0:19:26.920 --> 0:19:30.040 Yeah, and there were I mean you would add your hobbies, 0:19:30.240 --> 0:19:34.359 you would add who you worked for, what degrees you 0:19:34.480 --> 0:19:37.359 had maybe so yeah, again, lots of seeds of linked 0:19:37.440 --> 0:19:40.440 In for sure. Again no pictures, and this was a 0:19:40.520 --> 0:19:43.719 huge stumbling block, as we'll see. But they did have 0:19:43.800 --> 0:19:49.359 other functionality that was thrilling. It had basically in network emailing, right, 0:19:49.440 --> 0:19:53.520 so you could directly contact your context had they confirmed you. 0:19:54.240 --> 0:19:58.360 They are bulletin boards where you could essentially chat, and 0:19:58.400 --> 0:19:59.840 I think they had a bunch of other kind of 0:20:00.240 --> 0:20:03.200 and whistles that they added over the years. They had 0:20:03.200 --> 0:20:07.080 something called channels, which were essentially special interest groups and 0:20:07.119 --> 0:20:10.400 you could be like, oh, I'm interested in business and finance, 0:20:10.520 --> 0:20:14.119 or I'm interested in games I think, meaning at the 0:20:14.160 --> 0:20:18.080 time nothing but Oregon Trail, right, and you could just 0:20:18.160 --> 0:20:21.439 go and find other people on these message boards that 0:20:21.480 --> 0:20:24.320 were interested in these things and maybe make some context 0:20:24.720 --> 0:20:25.679 if they confirmed you. 0:20:26.200 --> 0:20:29.800 Yeah, again, way ahead of its time with Facebook groups, 0:20:29.840 --> 0:20:34.000 that's exactly what they did. We got some and you 0:20:34.000 --> 0:20:35.400 can go look these up if you want to see 0:20:35.440 --> 0:20:38.800 like screenshots of what the screen looked like. I believe 0:20:38.800 --> 0:20:41.679 we were sent one from October nineteen ninety nine a 0:20:41.720 --> 0:20:45.720 welcome scream scream screen, and it was it was cute. 0:20:45.760 --> 0:20:48.679 It looked like a fun website of the day. It 0:20:48.760 --> 0:20:51.480 had a service marketplace. There was daily trivia on the 0:20:51.480 --> 0:20:56.080 homepage that this is hysterical. There was a daily poll, 0:20:56.160 --> 0:20:59.199 and on that day in October nineteen ninety nine, this 0:20:59.359 --> 0:21:01.480 was the poll. When you get a chain letter from 0:21:01.480 --> 0:21:03.520 a friend, you a immediately throw it away, B do 0:21:03.560 --> 0:21:05.520 what it says asap, c hold on to it for 0:21:05.560 --> 0:21:09.680 a while, and then lose it. So it's clearly they 0:21:09.680 --> 0:21:12.960