what do you mean by "is it like the freemasons?". The only thing that Asmallworld ("asw", as it's known) has in common with the freemasons is that it's by invitation only...that's it. It's just another social network, which tries to be exclusive by letting you join only if you are inited by someone who's already a member there. It probably was close to being "exclusive" some 3-4 years ago, when few people were part of it and you really had to know the "right" people to join, but now pretty much everyone is part of it and a lot of its members have moved over to facebook (I'm a member myself and many of my friends on there have made facebook teir network of choice and aren't active on a sw anymore). Some male friends of mine used to use it regularly as a "pulling platform" a few years ago: they'd go for weekend breaks to European cities (from London) and would email random girls that were based there, asking them for recommendations on places to visit. Some of them would ignore their messages, others would reply offering advice, some would even offer to meet up. I remember once two friends went to a European capital and organised a dinner with 7 random girls (yes, 2 guys + 7 girls ;-)). It's quite good also if you're looking for quality property to rent or buy in one of the major cities in the world, not sure what else you'd use it for...It's badly designed in terms of navigation and functionality and I've found that the proprietary content it offers (city and restaurant guides, "magazine" etc) is rather dull...
