Miami Student

Issue date: 9/25/09 Section: Campus

If Kevin Bacon becomes a user of Glacir, a social networking site founded by two Miami University alums, any other user may instantly find his or her own six degrees to the famous actor.

Co-founders Brad Balzer and Zac Dziczkowski based their company, Glacir, Inc., on the "six degrees of separation theory." The theory states, if any person is one degree from any other person they know, and two degrees from any person known by a person they know, every person on Earth is within six degrees of every other.

"We show you your six degrees of separation of people around the world," Balzer said.

One starts by registering on the Web site and building a "first degree" by searching for and requesting a first-degree connection with people you know, similar to adding friends on Facebook.com. Glacir takes over from there, showing individuals two degrees away from you, three degrees away and so on.

"Basically, once you become a member, you can build your six degrees of separation," Balzer said. "Once you add someone to your first degree, we build it from there."

Glacir also shows users their separation from major news stories and world events. For example, a story on East Africa's current drought may appear along with the profile of a Kenyan Glacir user within your six degrees.

Balzer, a 2007 Miami graduate with a degree in engineering management, said the idea literally came to him in a dream.

"I had a dream about it and decided to explore the idea that there are six degrees of separation between everyone," Balzer said. "We were kind of surprised that no one had done something like this yet on the Internet."

Balzer and Dziczkowski enlisted the help of Dave Reis and Seth Williams, also Miami grads, in designing the Web site. They put up a "teaser page" at the beginning of 2009 and used mailing lists, Facebook, and Twitter to advertise the site's launch Sept. 17. In five days, Glacir has acquired almost 500 members. According to the Web site's interactive map, these members are located in six continents with a concentration in southern Ohio.

Junior Stephen Bruns joined Glacir after a friend at Ohio State University told him about it, and then learned that another friend's former roommate was one of the founders.

"It really goes to show you how quickly social networking can spread links to new information," Bruns said. "I've enjoyed seeing the connections some of my distant friends have to my closer friends here at Miami that I didn't know about. If a couple million people join, then I can't wait to see who I'm connected to!"

Balzer said the Web site will see new features soon, including allowing users to integrate their "friends" from Facebook. The new features are being developed at the group's base in Columbus.

"We're passionatew about keeping it in Ohio," Balzer said. "We're hoping to stay here, so if the company takes off, we'll be boosting the economy. We'd like to show people that you can operate an internet corporation out of the Midwest, not just California."

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