Is this where it all started?

Info on Erdos number project: "Erd�s Number Project"
In 1995, mathematicians started a new concept. They created a database of all those people who had co-authored a paper with Paul Erdos, "a widely-travelled and incredibly prolific Hungarian mathematician". All these people were given the Erdos number of 1. They then awarded Erdos number 2 to all the people who have co-authored a paper with people having Erdos number 1, and so on and so forth.

The idea was to create "a vehicle for more serious studies of the dynamics involved and a “real-life” fairly large graph for combinatorialists to study. "

I am wondering if, this is where the idea of networks like Orkut, Ryze started?