Image provided by: University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Lincoln, NE
About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 10, 1998)
rv. ■ The company is feeding off the nationwide “six degrees of separation” trad. NEW YORK (AP) - Hie idea that everyone is.connected within “six degrees of separation” has become familiar, carrying with it die tantaliz ing idea of one world, mankind as one bigfiunily. It has been the theme of a play and a movie and the gimmick of a parlor game. And now a company is working to prove ith a small World Wide Web after all, too. Sixdegrees.com runs a Web site devoted to networking everyone, and ith expanding. The way it works is a person reg isters at the site and lists up to 10 friends. Those friends are supposed to join and list 10 friends each of their own, and so on. It can be used for apartment searches, job hunts, quests for medical specialists or lawyers, even finding old high school chums. In short, anyone who has asked a friend, “Hey, do you know someone who... ” will understand the concept sixdegrees.com. “These are the peo ple I care to interact with," he said. “These are also the people who I care about what they think about the pres ident" Other Web communities are often organized around common interests: Get all the golfers together and let them talk about golf. Same for neuro surgeons or beekeepers. Instead of communities defined by what is being talked about, sixdegrees.com instead defines community by who is doing the talking. “There’s very much a social aspect to it," said Quinn Heraty, a law student and legal assistant at Lehman Brothers investment bank. “Other friends have said if they travel they would contact people in the area and socialize.” Heraty has been a member since July 1998. Besides networking, sixdegrees.com gives her a continu ously updated contact list of friends’ addresses. This is the use favored by Witold Riedel, 28, a freelance graphic designer in New York. He adds to the database any friend he thinks might disappear from his life, and says he has used die service to help friends locate apart ments and even find wallpaper pat tern makers. Still, others aren’t sold on the ser vice. Some, like David Cantrell, a soft ware developer in London, say they don’t need sixdegrees.com. “I'd rather keep my list of friends/acquaintances/business part ners private,” Cantrell said. “I find real face-to-face networking over a beer to be perfectiy effective” Privacy was mentioned by several sixdegrees.com members as a con cetti, although Nicole Berlyn, direc tor of marketing and advertising, said ' formerly limited to the mends of friends - two degrees of separation - users will now be able to find links between every other member, whether that link is three, 12 or 64 degrees of separation. Andrew Weinreich, CEO of sixdegrees.com, started the company in January 1997 with a small ceremo ny in which he listed five employees and two other people in his initial set of contacts. Today, there are more than 1 million members all leading back in some way to Weinreich and his seven initial contacts. And the database is growing by 10,000 and 12,000 names a day, he said. Such a “personal virtual commu nity,” as Weinreich calls his fust few members, is . the key to [—■ ■■ ■ i . —— .- ___i___ PACKAGES CAN BE SPLIT BETWEEN TWO PEOPLE OFFER ENDS SEPTEMBER 30. I 998~ '■ | , risers general demographic data. “We don’t rent, sell, give or show individuals’ data,” she said. Some people invited to join refused, saying they were wary of receiving unsolicited bulk e-mail - known as “spam.” Others suspected they were being made part of a mar keting scheme, or were simply unin terested in being contacted by the friend of their tousin’s dentist Weinreich is convinced, however, that if he provides the Web site, peo ple will use it Art Bushkin is the president of Pace Financial Network, a Vienna, Va.-based company putting financial services on the Web. He was invited to join by Robert Lessin, now the chairman of Wit Capital. He said he — initially felt flattered to be asked to join by someone he didn't know well. He tried it out and signed up. “I had agreed to participate in an online form of networking that I would have probably found embar rassing had I been at a cocktail party,” he said “It was an interesting way for us to connect that wouldn’t have hap pened in any other medium.’’ .. . A,-".. .... I Your roommate snores. Your biochemistry syllabus is 8 pages long. (Hey, at least there’s something to smHe about.) Happy news! If you’re a UNL student, faculty or staff member, you get 5 free hours of Internet access every month when you sign up for one of these Navix plans: Low Usage Plan: Get 15 hours of online time for just $6.50 a month. • (With your 5 free hours, it’s like 20 hours for the price of 15.) Medium Usage Plan: Get 40 hours of online time for just $10.00 a month. (With your 5 free hours, rsike45 hours for the price of 40.) High Usage Plan: Get 250 hours of online time for just $19.50 a month. (With your 5 free hours, ifS'ike 255 hours for the price of 250.) Additional minutes for each plan-are just $.02 and activation is free! And if you keep your usage for that month under 5 hours, your service for that month is also free! Navix is test, easy and reliable, letting you go online at speeds up to 56kps- There’s a local Help Desk and even an 888 access number to use when you travel. Call University Telecommunications at 472-5151 (students) or 472-3434 ; . (faculty or staff). Or, stop by 211 UnilT",! Nebraska Hall. IlliwvJr9 . y't . «•»*»••• . ___-.__ Visit our websites: www.navix.netwww.aiiant.com Aliant Communications ® MAKING IT EASIER TO COMMUNICATE.1" Netscape software is avaitabti in Windows and Madnlosh vttsiows. _ © 1996 Aliant Communications Inc. Aliant Communications is a registered service martt of Aftant Communications Inc. AH rigtiti reserved.
