friendster has really kept me busy this weekend. Stefan has guided me to an interesting research from UC Berkeley.

The author also elaborates on the point that social software so far does not mirror the intimate levels of personal relations. There is just one decision friend/connection yes or no.

"Articulating a Social Network In Friendster, one is asked to manually articulate one's network in a binary fashion: Friend or not. There is no
indication of what it means for someone to be someone else's Friend, nor any way to indicate the role or value of the relationship. While some people are willing to indicate anyone as Friends, and others stick to a conservative
definition, most users tend to connect with anyone who they know and don't have a strong negative feeling towards. "

What is on the positive side?

"When Stanley Milgram coined the term "Familiar Strangers," he was referring to the strangers that one sees regularly, but never connects with [5]. Given additional contexts, an individual is quite likely to approach a familiar stranger. For many, Friendster provides that additional context. In browsing the site, users find people that they often see out. From the Profile, one can guess another's dating status and sexuality as well as interests and connections. Often, this is enough additional information to prompt a user into messaging someone on Friendster or approaching them offline."

However the author concludes with a quite negative result in judging the failure of Friendster to create trust and an exact remodeling of real life social behavior. However I don not feel this is such a shortcoming, as people adapt to a different "system", as long as something creates value for them. That's apparently, what it seems to do, for most users so far.