It was named after the concept of six degrees of separation[4] and allowed users to list friends, family members and acquaintances whether registered on the site or not.

People who confirmed a relationship with an existing user but did not go on to register with the site continued to receive occasional email updates and solicitations.

It was followed by more successful sites based on the "social-circles network model" such as Friendster, MySpace, LinkedIn, XING, and Facebook.

MacroView (later renamed to SixDegrees Inc.), the company that developed the site, was founded by CEO Andrew Weinreich in May 1996[5] and was based in New York City.

[6] The site was bought by YouthStream Media Networks in December 1999 for $125 million.