Online Social Networks like Facebook, for years have had "friend" as a catch-all category for your contact list, with the only differentiation being the top 8 (Myspace) or recently-developed Facebook applications to do a similar top friends list.
I stumbled into an article here from the Wired Campus through The Chronicle. A few developers have each created Facebook applications for your enemies, or people who you 'snub'. Surprisingly enough, students are using it. Some to put people they know that they're actually mad with or don't like, some goofing off and listing a friend as an enemy temporarily, etc.
This really supports a long-held notion that I have had that Facebook and other online social networks would be better-served by having multiple categories of contacts. They can even tweak their privacy settings by category, so that a student might have: friends, acquaintances, best buds, family, mentors, etc. When another student looks at their friend list, they clearly can see what the level of contact is for those people. For someone who might be in need of a mentor, or really wants to know how person A knows person B, this could be more beneficial than relying on the "how do you know this person" feature on Facebook.
What are your thought?
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