Meet Mr. Bah-ston

Nick van der Kolk runs Boston from his dorm room in upstate New York. His inner circle includes the operators of Quincy, Cambridge, London, Seattle, New Bedford, Brockton, and St. Petersburg, Russia. Most of his other connections are only known by first names, like Manny, Pedro, Theo, and Whitey.

Van der Kolk says he is Boston — at least in the world of Friendster.com, a social-networking service that assimilates real-life social groups into a large virtual network. Launched in March, the service is meant to work by invite only — and if you’re over 30, chances are you haven’t gotten one. Users post their pictures and lists of interests when signing up. Once a member, a user has access to friends’ profiles — and can add testimonials vouching for the friend’s character — as well as to the profiles of their friends’ friends.

Friendster, which has 4.5 million users, currently earns its revenue from site advertising but plans to add premium features for which members would have to pay a price. Friendster has led the way in a growing field. Among similar sites, some are oriented to making business connections, like www.ryze.com and linkedin.com, and some like www.evite.com are social; www.tribe.com is a bit of both. Monster.com, a job-search website based in Maynard, plans to launch a networking service for career development called Monster Networking early this year.

Over the past few months, Friendster has been gaining popularity, not only with Boston people, but also as gauged by the addition of many new Boston-related themes. Some users, like van der Kolk, have been creating fake accounts in the guise of local places.

Van der Kolk says he signed Boston up in late November.

Porter, Davis, and Harvard squares joined in August. Cambridge, Roslindale, and Somerville in September.

Jamaica Plain (Occupation: gentrifier; Favorite Music: loud salsa from a souped-up ‘86 Corolla) and the South End (Interests: Ethiopian food, yuppie parties on the roof, Harriet Tubman) both joined in October.

"There was already a Boston Friendster page, but the person came across as lame."

''I wanted to create something with spark and vitality, to make Boston seem more interesting," says van der Kolk, 22, a South End native who studies psychology at Bard College and is the creator of the South End page. His Boston friend list had grown to 400 people by last Tuesday. Van der Kolk justifies claiming his the official Boston account because of the frequency of his log-ins, the number of friends he has acquired, and his prolific testimonial writing.

Boston-themed accounts also include local schools -- Mass Art, Boston College, Northeastern -- and parodies of local celebrities.

Lisa Kopp, head of marketing, public relations and events for Friendster, says that the Silicon Valley-based company isn't enthusiastic about its users creating accounts for this purpose, but that the staff is currently too small to prevent it.

''We're not Big Brother going around and ruining people's fun," says Kopp of claims by some users that Friendster is on a witch hunt to wipe out these fakesters. ''We don't police it. What we do is if someone comes to us with a specific complaint (about a fake account), we remove it. We just want our users to enjoy it the way it was meant to be. If people don't think it's disrupting their personal network, then fine. But it's not something we endorse," Kopp says.

But van der Kolk says his page also serves a deeper purpose. ''I did it to feel a connection to the city that I grew up in. Being far away makes you appreciate the city more," he says.

Other users, too, seem to appreciate having an outlet to sing the praises of their favorite 'hood.

Writes Umayyah about Porter Square, ''oh porter, my home: born and raised. when i was a little kid i thought the big red things were flying lobster claws, and still to this day your escalator gives me vertigo, but I remedy that by holding onto the bronze gloves. i miss the way the old shopping center looked, and i'm ever so upset that Decelle's is gone!"

Writes Bob about Cambridge, ''Ah, Cambridge. Scenic Mount Auburn. Ten people trying to sell you Spare Change on the way to lunch. People of all nations and types and shapes. Gangs of elderly tourists walking incredibly slowly in formation. Tipsy students stepping into heavy traffic. Tow truck drivers working overtime . . . The stench of rot emanating from the pit, where well-heeled youths from the burbs pretend to be down on their luck . . . Ah, Cambridge. You are a cruel and beautiful mistress."

Oliver Klein, 23, a cook who lives and works in Cambridge, created the Cambridge account after seeing a humorous Friendster page for the Eiffel Tower.

''Cambridge seemed like an obvious one. I just figured I'd put it out there and see who's interested," says Klein. Klein says he has no interest in being a mouthpiece for the city. He doesn't write testimonials and says he only visits the page to accept new testimonials and friend requests. As of early last week, Cambridge had 280 friends.

''I left it complete as its own entity -- to leave it as a space equally shared by everybody," says Klein. ''I didn't feel like I needed to or wanted to be a voice. Everyone has their own view. I didn't feel like I needed to explain it."

Van der Kolk, on the other hand, does. On San Francisco's page, Boston entices the city with gay marriage certificates. On the Chicago Cubs' page, Boston offers some consolation.

''My dear old Cubbies," writes Boston. ''I know it hurts, but ultimately we should both be thankful there wasn't a Cubs-Red Sox World Series last October. If that happened, during game seven at Fenway Park, a meteorite would undoubtedly come crashing down on the Fens at the precise moment the north side of Chicago sank into Lake Michigan."

On Newton's, Boston teases.

''Oh Newton, why do your kids look so damn bored? Don't they know they can always just hop on the T to my place and party till the breaka-breaka-12:15?"

On the page attributed to Wally -- who describes himself as ''6'6", green, fuzzy, and fantastic; ''sure, I've been with the team for less time than Tim Wakefield, but that doesn't mean I don't bleed Green" -- Boston is just plain mean.

''Why don't you just move to a fake baseball town, like Anaheim or Miami?" asks Boston.

If you search Friendster, you can find three Whitey Bulgers. On one page created in October, Quincy -- who lists his interests as ''being nicer than Dorchester" -- writes: ''Hey Whitey, remember that time you and Connolly came down to Wollaston Beach to talk about scamming the FBI? Those were good times, kid. Come home soon."

This reporter was only connected to one of these Whitey Bulgers. He did not respond to Globe requests for an interview.