Does "Friending" another user carry any benefits?
 

What I mean is, are there privileges that a Friend gets that a casual user looking at the same profile would not see, like Albums that are visible to friends only?

Regards,

Paul.

yes/no/maybe
 

The short answer is yes. A member can have it set so only "friends" can see his/her album, or so all can see.

There are a couple other features too.
 

Mostly involving privacy settings. You can set up you profile to allow Private Messages and e-mail from friends only, as well as the private album access already mentioned.