My language-learning routine is pretty old fashioned, I guess, but I think it's pretty effective. I read books, many many books, in my target language while keeping a vocabulary notebook and drilling myself daily both in order (directly from the notebooks) and at random using flashcards from my notebooks — in both directions, target language to English and English to target language. (When I do my notebooks, I'm careful to include all currently used word definitions if more than one exists.)

Then I move on to films and do the same thing.

Only then do I look for native language speakers, and I've had some success using meetup.com to find social groups for that. In Detroit, I hooked up with a French-speaking group that consisted of language learners and native speakers, everybody just getting together for coffee or a cocktail and hours of conversation.

So much fun! I made so many close friends, and I got my French back up to speed.

Of course that's not the same thing as looking for people online for learning purposes, and maybe it's not as fast and effective.