[IP] Re: Instant-Messagers Really Are About Six Degrees from Kevin Bacon

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

________________________________________
From: Rahul Tongia [tongia@cmu.edu]
Sent: Monday, August 04, 2008 12:04 PM
To: David Farber
Cc: Rahul Tongia
Subject: Re: [IP] Instant-Messagers Really Are About Six Degrees from Kevin Bacon

Dave,

I like the fact that this study tried to link up everybody, but still,
this is <3% of the world's population.  And, I would bet, it's a vastly
more networked and creamy layer.

Reminds me of my reaction whenever anyone asks, "Oh, you're from India,
do you know so-and-so?" I think, "Gosh darn it, there's over a
billion...oh, wait, I do."  That's because the creamy 1-5% really does
operate in a different world, with different connectedness, links (and
power) than others.

I've been trying to study network exclusion in detail (for details see
my FCC presentation and publications on network exclusion).
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rtongia/web2/FCC.html [synopsis and personal
commentary]
http://web.si.umich.edu/tprc/papers/2007/772/TPRC-07-Exclusion-Tongia&Wilson.pdf
[TPRC paper]
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rtongia/Annenberg_Seminar-Tongia-2008.pdf
[powerpoint on the issues]

Thanks,

Rahul

************************************************************************
Rahul Tongia, Ph.D.
Senior Systems Scientist

Program in Computation, Organizations, and Society (COS)
School of Computer Science (ISR) /
Dept. of Engineering & Public Policy

Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213 USA
tel: 412-268-5619
fax: 412-268-2338
email: tongia@cmu.edu
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rtongia




David Farber wrote:
>  Instant-Messagers Really Are About Six Degrees from Kevin Bacon
>
>  By Peter Whoriskey
>
>  Turns out, it is a small world. The "small world theory," embodied in the old saw that there are just "six degrees of separation" between any two strangers on Earth, has been largely corroborated by a massive study of electronic communication.
>
>  To view the entire article, go to http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/01/AR2008080103718.html?referrer=emailarticle
>
>
>
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>
>



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