Orkut: friendship isn't a boolean thing

Like many others, I was intived (by Ovidiu) to join the new social networking service mentioned everywhere in the blogosphere, Orkut.

I registered, started linking to close friends I found there, added myself to some groups, etc. Ah, when registering, I carefully omitted to answer some very personal questions this site gently invites you to answer to, wheareas its terms of service state it can "disclose your personal information and the contents of your account if required to do so by law". Which law? US law? Naah, I don't want them to know my sexual orientation, religion or political opinion, even if there's nothing special to be found there.

And then, crawling the friend-of-friends network, I found people I would like to link to, because I had the occasion to discuss with them, or because they're well-known in my little corner of the internet, but who I do not consider as "friends". Orkut doesn't allow me to weakly link to them.

Sorry, Orkut folks, but friendship isn't a one-click boolean thing. Have a look at Stefano's Agora to understand the importance of link weight.