Meeting Locals over the Internet?

tjjuggle asks: "Why is so hard to do local communication on the internet? Suppose I want to find a group of random people to play soccer with tomorrow. Given that I live in a town of 50,000+ people, many of whom are online, there should be a way. For major metropolitan regions, Craigslist.org fills this gap, but it is no use to those of us who live outside of the San Francisco Bay Area. Has anyone developed a service like Craigslist which can be used throughout the country? I imagine a site that, given a zipcode, it could then tell you which users are signed up who live within 10-20miles of you. Does anyone know of other local communication mechanisms?" Even now, one of the best ways for local communications remains Instant Messaging, but you usually have to meet the person, first. Are there other community-oriented websites out there that can assist users in meeting other users who live nearby?