Here’s an interesting project — Huminity is an attempt to create a “global visual map of contacts and connections”. It allows users to create their own “contact tree”, and then surf interactively across the connections built by themselves and others.

They look like they’ve got a pretty clever business model, too — almost all of the program’s features are available for free, except for one: the most powerful feature, the “Search Path” query engine. Search Path allows you to find connections based on any keyword you can come up with. While it sounds pretty boring, the example uses for Search Path that they list sound pretty compelling to me — for example, they cite the ability to look for a job by choosing a company you’d like to work at, then using Search Path to find out who at that company connects to you with the fewest intermediaries. If you want to use Search Path, they charge you a $28/year subscription — not too bad, if the network is well-populated and it’s as powerful as they claim.

Wonder if the folks at classmates.com have any spare cash left after running all those banner ads? This sort of thing sounds like a natural fit for what they do.