Now let me come to the point. As I was new to this area, I thought of one logging to some social networking websites and make some local friends over here. I find it extremely difficult to meet new  local people, know about the popular places in the city or be informed about the parties in the neighborhood, and if i can drop in or not.

I managed to find some friends, but they stay so far from me that meeting them seems to be a distant dream. This is where I again found that there is lot of scope of improvement for the social networking  websites. I have already written about this here.

Saying so, it reminds me of a social networking startup in Chennai called Areapal. The name itself suggests what it is trying to focus on. I shoot out a mail to know the updates and the detail list of features of the website. I was impressed to a great extent. It seems like some one had already faced the same problems I am facing in LA and has decided to solve it.

Here is a quick list of features it is going to have. Classify friends into Areapals and other areapals. They are dividing Chennai into different areas and each user has to be living in one area. Other features are area based news, events. In short, it is a social networking concentrating only on chennai and its areas. I would rather call it as city based networking.

This is exactly what I was looking for in LA. If I could know about the people living near me, it would be possible to meet them personally. Also I am more interested to know about the events and news happening in my surroundings. Hopefully, city based networking would solve this issue. However, this is beingimplemented in chennai and not in LA. I think I will have to persuade them to implement it in LA as well. 

The update they are giving me about their website is they have started one round of private beta and would be opening for public beta before july. Now the sad part or the interesting part of the story, the website is being developed by an Anna University student and his friend, and they are going to allow only Anna university students to use it in the beginning.

However, I think, if you know any Anna university students, you should be able to gain an entry into the application. If any one manages to get in or any Anna university students reading this, if you manage to be a part of the private beta or the public beta, please send me an invitation. I would like to see the application and use it, although I am not any more staying in chennai.

If you are an areapal user, please do leave your comments about the site and features.