Kevin Bacon Launches Six Degrees

Kevin Bacon is the ultimate connector, a fact he built on this week at the Sundance Film Festival to to launch sixdegrees.org. Six Degrees is a new site that says anybody can be somebody if they are working to raise money for their favorite charity. In case you aren't familiar with the concept of "six degrees," Wikipedia says:

The trivia game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon is based on a variation of the concept of the small world phenomenon, and states that any actor can be linked, through their film roles, to Kevin Bacon. The game requires a group of players to try to connect any film actor in history to Kevin Bacon as quickly as possible, and in as few links as possible. The game was played across various college campuses as early as the early 1990s. Its name is a pun on the stage play Six Degrees of Separation.

I joined Kevin in the Entertainment Weekly suite at Sundance on Saturday, where celebrities kept coming through the door to sign up. He's already got Nicole Kidman, Robert Duvall and Tyra Banks. Developed in partnership with Network for Good, Six Degrees enables all comers to build a web page and upload video describing their favorite charities and inviting support (It's MySpace for the retail philanthropy crowd.)

Kevin is matching the charity that raises the most by March 31st, with $10,000. He told me he is open to creating the same ability for donors who might want to promote giving with their own matches. Donations are under $70,000 right now, but the fury of the Internet effect has yet to be released.

Susan Herr