SixDegrees.com — The Start of Social Media

Launched in 1997 by Andrew Weinreich, SixDegrees.com was significant to digital history as it was the first social media platform to be recognized (Ngak, 2011). The name of the social media platform originated from the Six Degrees of Separation Theory, which was originally identified by Frigyes Karinthy (Adeyemo, 2018). The theory laid out that everyone is six social connections or less away from others (Jones, 2015). SixDegrees.com was established to facilitate communication with others, foster relationships and grow one’s social network. The site used “so-called connection engine technology” that allowed “members to use personal and professional relationships to make new contacts, share information and create special interest communities” (Cleary & Hanrahan, 1999).

SixDegrees.com allowed users to “create a profile, send messages and post bulletin board items to people in their first, second, and third degrees” (Adeyemo, 2018). Degree connections represent how close you are to another user. First-degree connections are those you are connected directly with. Second-degree connections are those you are not directly connected with. Lastly, third-degree connections are those who are connected to your second-degree connections. SixDegrees.com allowed users to connect on each level.

The website peaked at 3.5 million users, with the majority being young adults (Jones, 2015). However, the idea was ahead of its time, which led to the demise of the platform. During the late 1900s, there were fewer people connected to the internet. This meant that despite having millions of users, there was not much engagement among individuals due to networks being limited (Ngak, 2011). The lack of engagement on the site hindered its ability to be sustained. In December of 2000, SixDegrees.com was sold to YouthStream Media Networks (Jean, 2022). The site was shut down in 2001 but was regenerated a few years later (Jean, 2022). Friendster came into existence to compete with SixDegrees.com in 2002. Despite the website being sold, the site is still active to this day (Adeyemo, 2018). However, due to the variety of other social media platforms available today, there is a lack of engagement on this platform.

I chose to research SixDegrees.com as I was not aware of this platform and was interested in learning how social media has developed over the years. To do this, I felt it was only appropriate to start from the very beginning. After discovering that SixDegrees.com was considered the first social media website to ever exist, I was interested in learning more about it. Considering how popular it is today, I was curious to know what caused the first social networking platform to falter. Although a groundbreaking idea, SixDegrees.com was simply ahead of its time. The internet is such a huge part of our everyday lives today, but into the early 2000s, not as many people had access to it.

It has been noted that the demise of the website was due to its limited features. The engagement of these features was compared to that of Facebook which later followed the creation of this social networking site (“What led,” 2019). Currently, Facebook is much more prominent than SixDegrees.com, although the site still exists. Also, this site did not gain the exposure it likely would have had it been created today. Online advertising has a much bigger presence today than it did in the late 1900s.

As the popularity of the internet grew, more people became active online, which led to the success of the platforms that followed SixDegress.com. We now see similar features that SixDegrees.com offered in current social networking apps such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and others that followed Weinreich’s vision. Similar to SixDegrees.com, these social networking platforms allow users to friend others, start a conversation and find special interest communities. However, the later platforms have been more successful as they were created when “the market was ready with rising broadband availability and Internet participation by an increasingly diverse audience” (Press, 2018). Facebook has triumphed over other social media sites; however, it is SixDegrees.com that is responsible for the creation of social media.

References:

Adeyemo, A. (2018). History & importance of the first social media site — Six Degrees. Adeola Writes. https://adeolawrites.com/history-importance-of-the-first-social-media-site-six-degrees/

Cleary, S. & Hanrahan, T. (1999, December 15). College site publisher YouthStream to buy Sixdegress for $120 million. The Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB945269426653408644

Jean, E. (2022, May 17). Did you know that the first social media site is SixDegrees.com? iTechPost. https://www.itechpost.com/articles/110722/20220517/know-first-social-media-site-sixdegrees-com.htm

Jones, M. (2015, June 16). The complete history of social media: A timeline of the invention of online networking. History Cooperative. https://historycooperative.org/the-history-of-social-media/

Ngak, C. (2011, July 6). Then and now: A history of social networking sites. CBS News. https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/then-and-now-a-history-of-social-networking-sites/3/

Press, G. (2018, April 8). Why Facebook triumphed over all other social networks. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/gilpress/2018/04/08/why-facebook-triumphed-over-all-other-social-networks/?sh=1ede5fd86e91

What led to the failure of Six Degrees? (2019, November 26). Renewable Freelancer. https://www.renewablefreelancer.com/blog/what-led-to-the-failure-of-six-degrees/