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This is an intriguing project

May 13th, 2002 · 4 Comments

This is an intriguing project, but I think the research design is fatally flawed. Isn’t this going to result in a relatively small network of people forwarding messages around in circles, since you probably wouldn’t sign up to be a “target” unless you received an e-mail from a friend to participate?

Tags: Techie

4 responses so far ↓

  • 1 Scotty The Body // May 13, 2002 at 10:11 am

    I used to participate in a web site called sixdegrees.com. You would register and then try to find people you know and how you related. You enlisted people you know to sign up, so you could start getting results. It was interesting, but what ended up happening is they sold all the email addresses to spammers and nobody would join after that, so the functionality became quite limited.

  • 2 kirk // May 13, 2002 at 8:43 pm

    This experiment is legit.They don’t sell email address to anybody.Actually they got huge publication so they don’t have no trouble finding volunteers for target.I emailed them several weeks ago and one guy replied that so far they have more than 90,000 participants!

  • 3 nic // May 14, 2002 at 8:34 am

    I believe it is legit. I just think it is a bad experimental design. Poor science.To produce any meaningful results, the targets and the people who start the chains would have to be selected randomly outside of the context of the ongoing study.As it is, the targets and the participants are drawing from the same pool. Of course there will be a tight network. It is circular.I’m not sure I am explaining myself clearly.

  • 4 Scotty The Body // May 14, 2002 at 1:05 pm

    I know exactly what you mean, having witnessed many name-games in College as I listened to my New England prep school friends recount all of the ways they knew each other and each other’s friends:”Really, you know Bart Higgensworth? I used to sleep with his cousin.”“Nice one. His cousin was Fred Griffith’s girlfriend after I transferred from Roxbury Latin.”“No way, I used to get high with Fred and Evan Dando during Lemonheads shows!”and on and on…

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