Now you know! The Buddy List is now reciprocal–which means that in order to be added to someone’s Buddy List, you must accept his or her invitation to be Buddies.  If you accept, you both go onto each other’s Buddy Lists.  We made this change in order to allow the programming of various things that have been requested over and over by members: blast PMs, for one (see below), and expanded privacy options (see below), as well as other upcoming features.   There is a one-time “conversion” step for your current Buddy List, which is explained in the Help doc Buddy List Upgrade in the Help Center.  Unfortunately, there was no way to keep any tags that you had applied to individual Buddies, so anyone you invite will not be tagged when they accept and go onto your Buddy List.  (Your taglists are preserved, though, so you can reapply tags once the inviting/accepting is done.)  Click the link “Buddy List invitations” at the top of your Buddy List to see who’s invited you!  Read more about the Buddy List upgrade in the Help Doc Buddy List Upgrade under What’s New in the Help Center.

Have a blast. Blast PMs = the ability to send the same message in a PM to multiple members at once.   You can do this from the Buddy List now. Limiting it to Buddies only means we shouldn’t have people spamming other members they don’t know.  This feature was requested of us over and over again, and we are sure many of you will find it useful.  Read more about how to send Blast PMs from the Buddy List in the Help Doc Buddy List Upgrade under What’s New in the Help Center.

New Privacy Controls. Now you can decide to share more…or less…with other members, using the Privacy Controls link at the top of the Settings page in My Account.  You can choose who can see your lists, personal info, online status, and more.  Each of these can be set to Public (everyone can see), Private (no one can see), All Buddies (everyone on your Buddy List can see, but no one else) and Full Buddies (only those designated Full Buddies on your Buddy List can see).  The system defaults before you make selections are the same as the system defaults were before.   Read more about the new privacy options in the Help Doc New Privacy Controls under What’s New in the Help Center.