A+E Uses Facebook to Connect You to the Stars


Facebooks 800 million-member social graph should be able to show how youre linked to celebrities and historic icons of yore. Thats the premise behind A+E Networks just-launched Bio.com website.

The new Bio.com, the online home of A+Es long-running and Emmy Award-winning Biography series, shows visitors who log in via Facebook how theyre connected to notable figures. Its a Facebook-based twist on the Six Degrees of Separation theory.

The success of BIO through the years has demonstrated our fascination with famous people not just from understanding what makes them different from us, but what we share in common with them, says Dan Suratt, executive vice president, digital media and business developmen! t for A+ E Networks. Now, weve re-engineered Bio.com to leverage Facebooks social graph to highlight the personal connections that our visitors and their friends also share with those personalities of today and years past.

The site matches more than 6,000 celebrity profiles which include text biographies, video, photos and quotes against your Facebook relationships to determine if you share a birthday, hometown, alma mater or other connection to any of the worlds most famous folks from past and present. You can view how your Facebook friends are linked to well-known figures, and see how celebrities are connected to each other.

The Facebook integration is melded into the entire Bio.com experience and carried over to each and every famous person profile you visit. A visit to acclaimed golfer Phil Mickelsons profile, for instance, shows that Mickelson and I were born in the same city. A few of my Facebook friends share the same connection.

The new Bio.com site also features more than 150 full episodes from the Biography series, thematic photo galleries such as Famous Lookalikes, and gives visitors the opportunity to create and vote on their own celebrity shortlists.

Altogether, the Bio.com site offers an interactive experience that couples the brands expertise with social relevance. We find it to be smart, interesting and engaging. Let us know your thoughts or share your quirky celebrity connections in the comments.

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