And indeed it is elitist since I wanted to get invited by a friend to write this article and could not because she doesn’t have the privilege to invite new members. Style station reported that:

Only certain members of the club have the privilege to invite other members. asmallworld.net admin closely monitor the network and kick out members who network rapidly with the celebrities or who they deem are not worthy of being a part of this clicque.

And it gets worse:”FIVE members must approve your existence before you’re "in”. That poked my curiosity and for 3 weeks I begged my friend to let me at least peep in. She finally relented and offered me her most precious jewels, her ASW-Account and Contacts.

Almost devotional, I browsed through her profile, her friends and all the features the site offers. Not surprisingly there are lots of interesting things to do and see. It’s mainly about lifestyle, society, celebrities: Naomi Campbell, Paris Hilton and James Blunt  are among the 160.000 members, travel and cities and lots of subcategories are subjects of discussion. Browsing through the forum and the articles you always read about things in the context of distinguishing yourself from the masses e.g. who is tired of the I-phone already should think about the “ultra chic minimalist Media Skin phone from Japanese operator KDDI offers a welcome high- design, lo-fi alternative”.

And in addition to dozens of articles of the most exclusive restaurants, relaxing islands and fancy boutiques you can stay connected with your friends, get to know new awesome people, find a new job or buy a villa in St.Tropez.

It’s a simple mechanism that makes becoming a member so appealing: keeping (other) people out.