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Leveraging the Power of the Community 209

Figure 9.1 A communication heat map

Consider the two main characteristics of the World Wide
Web.

Pervasiveness: Currently of the 6,676,120,288 people on
the planet, 21.1% of them have Internet access. In this
decade alone, this figure has grown by over 300%.*

The Internet’s long tentacles surround our globe. This
pervasiveness has been statistically documented in a recent
study. Microsoft captured anonymized data for one month
of the high-level communication activities within Microsoft’s
entire Messenger instant-messaging system. They tracked 30
billion conversations among 240 million people. From the
data they constructed that more than 60,000 email users
attempted to reach one of 18 target people in 13 countries
by forwarding messages to acquaintances. Their conclusion
was that everyone is only six “steps” away from every other
person on Earth.**

This is not just a passing phase. The Internet is becoming
a foundation tool in people’s lives. Information from Vanina
Delobelle, PhD, shows:

* http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm.
** Microsoft Research Technical Report – MSR-TR-2006-186 June 2007.