What is the benefit of MacRumors friendship acceptance?

[AngerDanger]

I'm sure I could've come up with a less obtuse title, but I'm honestly wondering if adding friends on this site grants any specific abilities between friends. Will it allow befriended users to see more personal information a la Facebook, or will it do something as innocuous as, say, show their names in bold whenever I load one of their comments?

Basically, is there any point to it beyond compiling a list on one's profile of users with which one is amicable?

 

[Apple fanboy]

I'm sure I could've come up with a less obtuse title, but I'm honestly wondering if adding friends on this site grants any specific abilities between friends. Will it allow befriended users to see more personal information a la Facebook, or will it do something as innocuous as, say, show their names in bold whenever I load one of their comments?

Basically, is there any point to it beyond compiling a list on one's profile of users with which one is amicable?

I always thought it was just to show you are friendly!

Personally I do it for people I PM with on a semi regular basis, rather than looking for a post of there, you can just click on their name and send a PM quick & easy.

 

[S.B.G]

Depending on a user's settings, adding them as a 'friend' will allow them to see your photo album, other friends on your list and contact information. I think, by default, all that stuff is enabled for all to see. So, some people might lock it down to where its not publicly viewable.

You can add people to your 'contacts' list, which is not the same as the 'friends' list and that will let them show up in forum spy as yellow, and show them in your pop-out contacts list. They won't know they are on your contact list as no notification of the add is sent, unlike the friend request.