Social Knowledge: The Technology Behind

Social Technology

One of the pioneering works was conducted by Travers and Milgram in the late 1960s when they wanted to find out, how randomly selected individuals from one city could reach someone unknown to them in another city. To their surprise they found that within six steps or hops anyone could reach anyone else totally unconnected. This theory, which is now popularly known as six degrees of separation (Wikipedia, Six degrees of separation, 2010), became the basis for a social search to get connected to someone with the same interest. The advent of computer networks and the internet have pushed this evolution along dramatically. Thousands of tools such as email, instant messenger, blogs etc., have pushed social technology to what it is today. LinkedIn started with the premise that recommendations work better when they are given by someone who is one or two steps removed from your direct contact as otherwise the recommendation may be viewed as biased.