Six Degrees and Human Pets

I stumbled across a rather ambitious group today: Six Degrees of Separation - The Experiment. Like the play, the movie and the popular game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, this group’s aim is to prove that everyone is connected via a chain of no more than six people. (Not necessarily related; just connected.)

I’ve seen this in other applications and groups, but in those cases the point is usually to link members to the group’s founder. I’m not clear who this group is linking to. Possibly the celebrity of the day that group members vote on?

The ambitious part is that the admin, Steve Jackson, wants to try to prove connections between every member of Facebook — which means, of course, they’ll all have to join the group. The group already has well over 400,000 members, and more are joining all the time.

For connections of a different kind, you might try getting your friends to adopt you with Human Pets. Not since the hula hoop has there been such a craze. And here of course I am speaking about the craze happening in my apartment, a craze of one.

 Well, no. Actually, there are more than 47,000 users of the Human Pets application, which allows you to present yourself as a pet and to buy other human pets. Though it sounds a little kinky, the developer has done a nice job of explaining his view of the tool as a place where minors are welcome and “mean people will be banned.”

It’s a fun format, with lots of little preferences to choose from. You can pick which animal best suits your personality, select your habitat and choose your mood. You can also take part in auctions to buy other humans as pets, and if you are adopted your owner can “feed” you and “pet” you just like he/she can with his/her (fluff)friends.

And, of course, while left to your own devices you can choose to join one of many, many herds, which are basically Wall pages for whichever group(s) you join. Show your appreciation for other pets in the herd by giving them a thumbs-up.

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