The World's First Social Media Network (Nope, Not Friendster)

A lifetime ago

Friendster (Mar 2002). MySpace (Aug 2003). Orkut (Jan 2004). Facebook (Feb 2004). The founding fathers of social media.

But there was an earlier site. Born even before Generation Z.

SixDegrees. May 1997. That was when Andrew Weinreich, Adam Seifer et al launched their website. https://www.sixdegrees.com . Drawing inspiration from the "six degrees of separation" theory.

Stranger to friend in six handshakes?

The idea had been around since the 1960s. That six connections were the most it would take. To link you to anyone. In our small world.

That every person in society made a conscious choice. Whether to stay with existing connections (and remain central in importance). Or benefit from widening his or her circle.

And yet, even as the circle grew, members remained within six steps. From each other.

Friend. Friend of friend. Friend of friend of friend. And so on. Max six times.

Researchers had piled up statistical data. In favour of this theory. Including Harvard psychologist Stanley Milgram. In his famous 1967 experiment.

People had played parlour games. Like Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.

But nobody had ever proven this conclusively. Not mathematicians. Not game theorists.

30-year old Andrew sought to develop this concept. Into an online reality. By mapping relationships between people. Over the internet. And building an actual web of such contacts. For the first time ever.

His team wrote the software code needed to run it.

Getting the show on the road

SixDegrees opened shop by inviting 150 professionals to join. From New York's tech and media industries.

If you were one of them ...

You'd sign up with your email address. Create your personal profile. Show off your school affiliations. Describe your occupation. Hobbies. And skills.

You'd find other familiar people through the site's Member Directory. And connect with them. Colleagues. Fellow alumni. Business associates. Long-lost neighbours. Who'd need to acknowledge the relationship. Before SixDegrees added any of them. To your Contact Manager.

You could refer external names. SixDegrees would invite them to join the site. And onboard them only after they confirmed via email. Strictly.

You could browse fellow members' profiles. Send and receive private email messages. Via DegreeMail.

You could locate others with similar pastimes. Through a search engine from within the site. Or through the AllMyDegrees section.

You had your own MyBulletinBoard. Where your first-, second- and third-degree contacts could post messages. And a mail forwarding feature would notify you.

And, true to its name, you could see how many degrees of separation away you were. From Bill Clinton. Or Oprah Winfrey. Or from any other celebrity or public figure.

House rules

Right from the outset, SixDegrees insisted on real member names. No fancy moniker or "handle".

And they discouraged multiple accounts. Belonging to the same individual.

They came down hard on spam or junk mail through their platform.

SixDegrees became a certified TRUSTe member. Complying with their stringent standards. Of customer privacy and data security.

Closed door to free-for-all?

Despite its exclusive beginnings, SixDegrees had been catching on. Among early adopters of the internet. With every passing month.

Early 1998. They opened up to the public. Encouraging members to get more members onto the platform.

And the crowd poured in.

The SixDegrees experience

SixDegrees was all about building real-life relationships. With people sharing common likes. Beginning with folks you already knew.

You could start a Special Interest Group within any of SixDegrees' 15 Channels. Arts and Literature. Health and Wellness. Fashion and Beauty. Your community within a community. The platform featured them in their Channel Spotlight. By rotation.

You could compare notes with your online study group. Share your bookmarks. Follow your favourite pro team's games. During sports season.

SixDegrees carried a monthly "meganetworking" column. By Melissa Giovagnoli. Acclaimed coach and author.

They teamed up with JobDirect.com . To add career-related features to MyBulletinBoard.

They started an Affiliate Program. And a Campus Rep Program. For students to "earn while learning".

And a ServiceFinder. Where you could buy, sell or auction professional services. As a calligrapher. Or a babysitter. Or a tour guide. Or anything else.

They added a Who's On section. Where you could check who else was logged on. And chat with them. Almost in real time.

They embellished the public area on the site. With loads of nifty stuff.

News headlines. Stock prices. Weather forecast. Horoscopes. Event calendars. City guides. Maps. White Pages. Classified ads.

Daily Trivia. Which Brittanica.com , Buy.com and GiftCertificates.com sponsored.

A Daily Poll. Which Mastercard and Photoloft sponsored.

A Book Club. Where you stood to win six weekly USD 25 Amazon.com gift certificates.

A Marketplace. Where you could shop for books or CDs.

A Triple Play. Where you could win a Sony PlayStation 2. Or a Sega Dreamcast. Or even a Club Med holiday.

A Holiday Gift Guide. During Christmas 1998.

PulseFinder. An interactive polling network. Where they ran surveys and questionnaires. Announced winners. And gave prizes away.

Special promotions and contests. From retail chain Egghead Software and other merchants.

Freebies. Like a trial subscription to the Los Angeles Times web edition.

Online "chat interviews" with celebrities. Where you could hang out and say hello too.

A Who's Who section. Where you could be featured.

Product reviews. Like the Motorola Talkabout T900 2-Way.

The tribe grows

It started raining members.

May 1998. They crossed a million registered users. SixDegrees was now already the largest virtual network of their era.

Sep 1999. Members shot up to two million.

Time to pay the bills?

But SixDegrees needed to start making money now. After all, they'd been upgrading their hardware systems often. And hiring staff. To keep pace with their fast-scaling community.

They toyed with the idea of a subscription fee. But scrapped it. Kept membership free.

SixDegrees had data on users' demographics. And on their preferences, engagements and activities.

They tried selling advertising slots on their site. Amazon.com and Visa ran a few ads.

But digital advertising was an infant then. So was ecommerce.

Dec 15, 1999. New York-based internet company YouthStream Media Networks acquired SixDegrees. Together with its patents. For USD 125 million.

Feb 2000. SixDegree membership broke the three million mark.

Mar 2000. But a month later, the dot-com bubble began to burst. Leaving most internet companies financially stranded. And triggering layoffs.

Way ahead of its time?

When SixDegrees started out in 1997, only 21.6% of America's population used the internet.

You'd log into their website via Internet Explorer. Or Netscape Navigator. The US had no 3G or mobile broadband until 2002.

You couldn't personalise your profile page.

You couldn't upload photos. Or videos. Or music files. Due to low internet speeds.

Digital cameras were around, of course. But came into the mainstream only in 2003.

And Sprint launched colour camera phones only in Nov 2002.

Without photo sharing, SixDegrees couldn't offer online dating.

The last hurrah

Even so, they kept up their tempo.

Started a Travel Club 2000.

And hosted an Election 2000 discussion forum. During the Bush vs Gore Presidential race. Where you could cast your make-believe vote.

SixDegrees eventually notched up a record 3.5 million users. And their roster peaked at 100 employees.

But monetising their business model remained elusive.

Must all good things end?

Dec 30, 2000. SixDegrees shut its doors. The Wayback Machine still carries their closure notice. Shall leave the link below.

But wait! The story didn't end there.

The legacy

In Sep 2003, YouthStream put US patent No 6,175,831 on the auction block. Having no use for it. In their business.

Within 24 hours, two entrepreneurs snapped it up together. For USD 700,000.

The patent had been filed back in 1997. It was the original SixDegrees Patent.

And the two buyers were Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn and Mark Pincus, founder of Zynga.

Reid said, "Both Mark and I had tracked SixDegrees. As an intellectual precursor to our own businesses".

So SixDegrees lives on through others. Even today.

The domain sixdegrees.com still exists. As a reminder. Of the granddaddy of social media networks.

Apple's App Store has a Six Degrees App for iOS.

And oh! By the way, scientists are still debating the six degrees of separation theory.

Until next time. Take care of yourself. :)

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