I wrote about how networks should expose the people you know in common. I went to add a friend today on Facebook and noticed this “mutual friends” block in the search view. Nice.

I won’t go into a discussion here about why the use of the word “friends” in social networks is incorrect or how much of a waste of time it is to recreate my social graph on every site. That is perhaps the topic of a future entry. It’s almost a given these days that all social sites connect me with friends or interesting people. I actually find that keeping up with some of these connections is useful, especially with networks like Facebook or Twitter.

But you know what would be really nice? Instead of just saying:

jack is now following your updates on Twitter.

Or:

Michele added you as a friend on Facebook. We need you to confirm that you are, in fact, friends with Michele.

Can you give me some hints about how we could be connected and why you are attempting to connect us in the first place? Perhaps a brief blurb about their bio or their hometown. How about letting me know how Jack and I could be related? Show me which friends we have in common. I’m pretty sure you can do this in like one SQL query (and all without even breathing hard). This is especially useful in networks where everyone uses nicknames instead of their full name.