Upgrade went live on 2/1/2008.

PBS Friends now offers more options! 

What's new:

• Blast PMs: You can send the same PM to multiple Friends at a time, by taglist or using the checkboxes and clicking PM at the top of the list.
  • We do recommend caution with this feature. Sending mass, unsolicited PMs can be considered spam! If members complain, it can affect your membership here. We recommend not using the blast PM feature too often, and if you do so you should limit the number of recipients to 25 at a time.
• Privacy: You can set levels of privacy for Friends--Full Friends or Lite Friends--in your Account Settings. See below
• Approval process for Friends:
  • Adding a member to your Friends will need approval from the other member now
    • click +Friend to send an invitation to a member by email to become Friends
  • Accepting another member's offer to add you to their Friends (this invitation will come by email) will automatically add them to your Friends also
    • You can accept (or ignore and remove) other members' invitations to be Friends from your Friends, by clicking the link Friends invitations at the top of Friends.
    • You can see if you have any pending Friends invitations from your My Account page by clicking the checkmark on the upper right of the toolbar.
  • Removing a Friend from your list will now also remove you from that member's Friends--in other words, mutual consent is required to become and remain Friends.
    • There are NO notifications sent when a friend is removed
  • Tags on the Friends will not be viewable to any other members.
  • When two members become Friends, they are Full Friends by default. 
    • You can adjust any Friend to a Lite Friend on the Privacy Controls page in your Account Settings.  See below for more information about the Lite Friend option.
    • Your Friends will not know if they are Full or Lite Friends on your Friends page.

• You can also set your account to auto-accept all Friends invitations in your Privacy Controls in the Account Settings. See below for more information about the Privacy Controls.

Converting your Friends begins on 2/1/2008.

For members who already have a Friends created before that date:

• You will see the page of 50 Friends at a time when you go to your Friends
• You have to invite or delete your Friends
• Your tags will be removed by the invite/accept process--you will have to reapply them (sorry!)
• There is no limit to the number of Friends you can have
• You can accept/ignore invites from the link at the top of your Friends
• There is NO email notification when Friend Invitation is ignored, or when Friend is deleted.
• Friends you invite/accept will be Full Friends by default--you can adjust them to Lite Friends if you want (and also adjust the privacy options for Full Friends) in your Account Settings. See Below.
• You can also choose "accept all Friends invitations" in your Privacy Controls (linked from the top of your Account Settings)--any member who clicks +Friend will be Full Friends with you if you choose this option (the default is No).  You can adjust any of them to Lite Friends (they will not be notified/aware of that change), or delete them from your Friends (this will remove you from their Friends also without notification) after they are on your Friends if you like.

New Privacy Settings:

These privacy options are available from the link Privacy Controls at the top of the Settings page in My Account.

• You can decide who sees what in your account, including information about your:
  • Profile
  • Last login
  • personal info (age, city/state, email address, telephone number, mailing address)
  • Lists (Bookshelf, Wish List, Friends, Reviews, transactions)
  • Online status

• Each of the above will have a setting you can assign:
  • Public (any member can see)
  • All Friends (Full and Lite Friends can see)
  • Full Friends (only Full Friends can see)
  • Private (nobody can see)

You can assign Full Friend/Lite Friend status from the bottom of the Privacy Controls page.  Your Friends will not know if they are Full or Lite Friends on your Friends page.  No Friends will be able to see your Friends tags.  You can also set your account to auto-accept all Friend invitations (all auto-accepted Friends will be Full Friends until/unless you change the setting after the friend is added). 

This change to Friends was made in direct response to member feedback.  In order to permit changes that many members have told us that they really want, some things about Friends had to change.  Some of the member-requested features are now available, and some will be coming in the future.