I've been monkeying around with a few things on this site and was wondering what the difference between a contact and a friend is. Anybody have a simple explanation? I've been poking around but haven't found an explanation.
Good question. I have a list of "contacts and friends", and then the option to add either a contact or a friend. So now I'm not sure if I have just contacts or just friends, or an unidentifiable mix of both. To further confuse the issue, this unidentifiable mix of people are listed as "buddies" on my main screen. So are they contacts, friends, buddies, or simply people I don't really know?
Your Contacts just show up on your Buddy List on the left side of the site.
Your Friends show up there, but you also get a pic of their avatar on your profile page.
You do not send a buddy request when you select to add someone to your contacts but don't check "also add to your buddy list" - this would make someone a contact, but not a buddy. You can use the Contact list to see when someone is online without notifying them.