4.74 Degrees of Separation
People with a passing knowledge of network theory tend to talk about the six degrees of separation—six being the average number of people separating any two people on the planet. But as of November 2011 there's a new number: 4.74. Facebook and researchers at the University of Milan working together crunched the data and found that the number of connections required to get from any one person to any other is shrinking as social networks increase in global popularity.
Whether or not we take this particular number seriously, the idea of radical connectedness has become a permanent fixture in our popular imagination. Thanks to professional networking sites like LinkedIn, which actually shows us how many connections away ...
Get Get Lucky: How to Put Planned Serendipity to Work for You and Your Business now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
