I was a regular in a chat room with some friends, and occasionally the chat would turn to neo because a few of them played it. I knew it existed but wasn't interested in signing up, at least until I got fed up with not being able to relate to what everyone was talking about. I played for about a week but didn't really "get" it so I left for about a year. Came back and haven't stopped since! My neo name is the same as my very first AIM name, and it's been yeeeeeears since I've used that. I guess time has flown.
As for the friends from the chat, only 3 sign on every now and then according to my NFs online thing. One of the others was one of the owners of one of the top pets at the time (firefox40 or something?) but he went off to join the marines and I haven't heard from him since. Another one (maybe two) were kind of cheaters (programs, but not scams). Tons of NP and trophies, but their last known accounts have since been frozen. A few others don't even come up in search anymore, deleted I guess.
I still remember getting so frustrated that I couldn't find the map of Neopia that I had seen once or twice while randomly clicking around. I kept clicking "World" and it wasn't it!
Now that I think about it I don't really remember what the "World" part of the sidebar was for.
This was a fun trip down memory lane, thanks for bringing this up