The recent controversy over Facebook connects with an interesting issue. Here’s a comment from the Buzz Out Loud podcast.
Show Notes 307 – CNET Buzz Out Loud Lounge Forums

Bill sticks up for FacebookIf you look closer into the anti-News Feeds/Mini-Feed groups on
Facebook, 90 percent of the people that are protesting this “invasion of
privacy” are the people with hundreds of friends that they likely just
added to boost their “e-cred.” Most level-headed people that add only
their real-life friends myself included are finding the new additions
extremely useful. I love that I can go to Facebook on my cell phone and
find out everything that has happened since I last checked the site
without wandering aimlessly all over the place. Its a lot better than
wasting a 15-cent text message to be told that I was poked.

Maybe people need to learn the meaning of the word “friend” before they
complain about their friends being updated on what theyre doing.

Love the show, keep up the good work,

-Bill

Well, my observation is that, in the U.S., and especially in schools, colleges, and universities (Facebook’s target market), the term “friend” is applied to almost anyone with whom one is on friendly terms. People in a hierarchical relationship (say, professor and student) typically don’t call each other friend even when their relationship is sound. “Friend” isn’t necessarily the opposite of “ennemy” or “competitor” and friends do compete in many situations. There’s a whole lot more to say about this and anthropologists have been surprisingly silent about the importance of friendship in U.S. society.

Another thing to think about is that a special notion of friendship is at the basis of what O’Reilly calls “Web 2.0” and was already present in (now defunct) SixDegrees.com as well as today’s MySpace.com and other Facebook.com.