I have a b2b application for elgg. And for business notifications are essential for automating workflow.

I understand the relationship (or so I like to think). I call friends -> contacts so forgive me if I slip up and revert.

By default you have

Friends 

Friends of

I changed the code so only the user can see "friends of" because in a business environment you dont necessarily want your competition having a checklist of your friends.

So now you have something you want to share with someone in the "friends" and the average user looks at their friendss and sees the person in the list so they assume that they will get a notification (thinking the reciepient has turned it on automatically like they do).

In reality, you just opened access and it will pop up on the river/activity but no notification.

To check for a mutual connection you basically have to compare the lists ...and if you have more than 10 people that is not easy.

There are mutual contact add ons invites but the one I used broke the automatically add as contact feature for email invites. So I havent tried that solution again.

So the solution that would work for me is actually three different categories of contacts. The concept is more important that the terminology.

Friends = mutual contact that has access to "friend" level content. People made each other friends

Following = People I am stalking....access and notifications to other peoples "member" level content

Followers = people stalking me...people who are not in your inner circle but are interested in your company and have access to "member" level content.

You may have an extra list but I am looking for a way to know at a glance the users relationship/access setting

Looking for any previous work or ideas along these lines