“The world is small, your town is a village, good friends are important, expand your circle of friends, find new tennis partners, new pubs or books (…)” – that is the motto of lokalisten.de.  In so doing, the local network, launched in May 2005, now accesses localized networks in over 30 German-speaking urban areas, with more than 300,000 active users. And according to their own announcement, it is one of the fastest growing private-communities in Germany.

At then end of 2006, the lokalisten was awarded the Seal of Approval by the ‘Studio im Netz’ (SIN) organization, a country-wide active association specializing in the promotion of media-pedagogy.  The award cited the exciting potential of combining the real and the virtual, through the expansion of existing friendships in the Internet, or virtual friendships facilitating possible new contacts and friends locally.   This is made possible by the regional connectivity of the members, and through the lokalisten parties, where the virtual friendships can expand into the real.  For ‘lokalists’, the offline world is as important as the online world.  This aspect is planned to be developed, so as to help the members transform their lives.  Already the Community is helping to do this, in many ways: from ridesharing, through combined search for shared accommodation, to ski holidays with new groups of users and friends.

Lokalisten.de is a closed network.  To become a member, one needs to be invited by a friend.  One can however also register as a ‘newbie” and take a look around the network.  As soon as a member is offered an invitation by a member, it is possible to become a member.