Out of curiosity, how many friends do you guys have ? I have 56 and they are all interested in Audio CD's which is all I trade. Is that a lot or average ? 

I have 195...I am sure that some of them are no longer active at PBS but I do get many books posted directly to me by friends. And some of them have become real friends that I keep up with outside of PBS. I really have no idea what is the average number of friends, but hopefully we will get an idea as other members respond.

I have never asked anybody to be a friend but I have gotten a few requests to be friends. I think I have about 8 or nine. I have one that was one of the first that asked me and that person has had their acc't on hold for about 2 years at least.

I just looked at the profile of one of my friends. This person has over 5600 friends. That seems like a lot. According to the profile they also have 12 posts in the forums.

If you play in the swap games, it is really helpful to have the other folks in the game as your friend. Makes it easier to check wish lists.

There are 92 people on my friends' list.

I have 262 - at one time I was on auto for friends, so if they ordered a book from me they automatically became my friend. Not sure how many are still active though. Pat

Speaking of the friends' list, I have a number of requests that I have sent to other members, maybe 20 or so, in which they have just never responded either way. Most of them are members that are quite active on the site. I always thought that was odd. I did have one person decline a request because he didn't want to have "friends" on the chance that one would post a book directly to him and that was a practice he didn't believe in. I have never personally posted a book directly to a friend on my list but maybe I would at some point; I use it mostly to find interesting titles to add to my own WL or otherwise look for.  The only time that a "friend" has ever posted directly to me, they apparently never sent the books as I never received them and they went "lost" in the mail.

I have 234 friends.  I never look at the list, it's on auto-accept so I don't have to be bothered with it.

I have 7, most of whom are new and auto-accepted. I didn't know about auto-accept until recently, but that's rather a cool feature. I guess more people are friending me because of the new (or new to me) option of offering books to friends first if that book is on their WL. 

I'm at 164 friends. Mine is set to auto request as well. Every once in a while a book I post can be posted directly to one of them.

I have bags more friends than you do, Larry. I try mostly to list books to friends. I don't use PBS postage friends tend to mark the books received in a timely fashion.

I didn't add you as a friend because I'm not a fan of audio books.

Whee! I'm now up to 13 friends. :)

Lynn - I just added you as a friend, so now you have at least one more!

I currently have 63 friends.

While I like the idea of friends and getting books posted to me that way, I also really like the idea of FIFO.  I was recently able to do both - I had two wishlisted books to post, and was able to send one to a friend and one through FIFO.  (Marya, you were my post to a friend book.)

Now I just wish I had more time to read, but it seems like life is always getting in the way...

Thank you, Janet.

Once I put my Friends on auto-accept I was amazed at how many friends I acquired. I still can't figure out why they would do that. Is it because they hope they might jump the list when I post a book they have WLed? 

Quite frankly, when I log into my Profile, I sort of miss seeing the statement "Thomas F. has no friends."  Still, there was no need to rub it in.

I'm reminded of a cartoon I once saw. It showed an elderly man on his computer, with his wife leaning over him. She was saying, "How come you have 267 friends on Facebook, but none in real life?"

What Jill said....even though I've been a member for awhile, I haven't figured out the whole friends thing yet.  (Yes, Facebook baffles me too!)

I'd love to get some PBS friends too!

There seems to be a belief that if you have more friends you'll get more books. In my experience it is not the quantity of friends so much as having friends that you regularly swap with due to similar reading tastes. I have 195 friends on PBS but out of those there are perhaps 15-20 who will routinely post books to me and I to them because we read the same, not mainstream, authors. It is the similarity of reading tastes that is the key! When I have requested a book FIFO I always look at the other member's shelf to see if there is another book I'd like...and I'll often look at their WL too. If we are wishing for a number of the same books, then I will send them a friend request. Like others, I choose to send to friends over FIFO because they tend to respond to WL offers promptly as well as marking books received in a timely manner.

I have 128 friends and I'm set up to Auto-Accept friends. It's interesting to see what people have on their wishlists and get ideas for what books to add next. I also agree with Sally - having lots of friends doesn't necessarily help you get more books. The best way to get more books is to fill your wishlist. I'm maxed out at 500 on my wishlist but I'm sure that if I had 1,000 wishlist spots I'd get twice as many books. I'm always surprised by the people who say they never receive wishlist books but then they only have 16-30 books on their wishlists so it lowers the odds. It might also help that I have every book on my wishlist set to Auto-Request so there's no wait time required by the sender - if a book becomes available to me the offer is automatically accepted. If you constantly receive/send books to the same people, then you probably have the same taste so they'd be good to friend.