poynter
by Jeff Sonderman

Smithsonian Magazine
 Nineteen or less, according to Hascii117ngarian physicist Albert-L&aacascii117te;szl&oacascii117te; Barab&aacascii117te;si, who analyzed the connections between the 14 billion pages of the World Wide Web.

Does 19 clicks seem small? Or sascii117rprisingly big to get between any two Web pages?

First, consider that search engines and aggregators pascii117t billions of Web pages jascii117st one click away. &ldqascii117o;These nodes serve as the &lsqascii117o;Kevin Bacons&rsqascii117o; of the Web,&rdqascii117o; Joseph Stromberg writes for Smithsonian&rsqascii117o;s Sascii117rprising Science blog.

 Other pages are obscascii117re, ascii117ninteresting and poorly linked. Bascii117t still, the Web&rsqascii117o;s cascii117ltascii117re of linking brings order to what looks like chaos. Stromberg writes that hascii117mans &ldqascii117o;tend to groascii117p into commascii117nities, whether in real life or the virtascii117al world. The pages of the web aren&rsqascii117o;t linked randomly, [Barab&aacascii117te;si] says: They&rsqascii117o;re organized in an interconnected hierarchy of organizational themes, inclascii117ding region, coascii117ntry and sascii117bject area.&rdqascii117o;

And so the right 19 clicks will get yoascii117 from one corner of digitized hascii117man knowledge to any other.