The business -- and technology -- of finding a friend in cyberspace

Posted by dave on Jan 26, 2005 6:46 AM EDT
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If you're an inveterate reader of blogs, then you're probably ready for the latest phenomenon roiling the Internet: social networking software (SNS). SNS enables the development of so-called "Friend of a Friend" networks (FOAF, for short) such as Ryze.com, Linkedin.com, and AlwaysOn.com that have come to the fore the past couple of years. MySpace.com, designed for the high school and college-age crowd, also has grown rapidly. These online personal or business networking sites are exploding in use, often adding tens of thousands of new users every month. Like the enormously popular dating site Friendster.com, all these sites are based on the "six degrees of separation" principle. That's the notion that any two random people on the planet are connected by an average of six acquaintances -- a claim that has been around for some time and supported most recently by a 2003 study reported in the journal Science.

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