Only connect electronically

"Social networking is one of the building blocks of the Web 2.0 dream: bringing together like-minded people online to create a community of interest that can share knowledge, information and resources and make useful contacts," writes Michael Parsons in a comment article on connecting electronically. " However, we must not forget its older, fleshly incarnation – the real networking event. During the height of the dotcom boom you had to fight off invitations to internet networking events."

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Social networking is one of the building blocks of the Web 2.0 dream: bringing together like-minded people online to create a community of interest that can share knowledge, information and resources and make useful contacts. However, we must not forget its older, fleshly incarnation – the real networking event. During the height of the dotcom boom you had to fight off invitations to internet networking events. Societies like First Tuesday, The Chemistry, and Land of the New Giants brought together badly dressed people with business cards to exchange lies about their website's readership and drink a lot of nasty white wine. After the crash, decadent gatherings like this became much less popular. Yet this week I've received invitations to several, which perhaps means it's time to start selling tech stocks again. It's a market top.

There is no greater signal of a market top than a social networking event. These evil gatherings are the giddy spume at the top of the breaking wave, the ludicrous peppermint froth beside an over-priced rack of lamb which lets you know the chef has completely lost the plot. For networking events of this type to take place you need a whole bunch of people who believe that others want to help them get rich. These people have to be able to stay out schmoozing until midnight and get away with calling it work. They also have to have day jobs that are undemanding enough that they can go into work late the next day clutching a triple venti macchiato and a preoccupied expression.

Ideally, the networking stalwart should perform ill-defined marketing, business development, or research roles that are vague enough that their productivity is essentially impossible to measure. And most importantly of all, they have to believe that they are going to get rich quickly doing something new. For this they need the attentions of a privileged class: the venture capitalists. Where there are venture capitalists, there are people who want to pitch them ideas.

Sadly, nothing turns a salon into a brothel more quickly than the presence of these well-bred hucksters. Look for an air of exclusivity and a lot of men in pink or blue shirts without ties. Look for people who seem to know an awful lot about opera as well as Opera, and who murmur terms like "liquidity event" while scanning the room for someone more important to talk to.

I have gone to an unaccountable number of these events as a journalist, and I can honestly say that nothing nice ever happened to me at any one of them. I ironed my pink or blue shirt, I made sure I had lots of business cards, and I drank the official twoglasschard that is the ritual drug at such occasions. For the record, no one else appeared to be having a good time: not the breezy PRs, not the swivel-entrepreneurs, not the cynical VCs. No one ever became suddenly, visibly rich in front of me, which would at least have been exciting. But then why should people have been having a good time? Networking is just work with canapés and no chairs.

I used to write stern editorials bemoaning the fact that people in the UK seemed to be missing a trick on this whole networking thing. Americans seem much more comfortable at this kind of networking event, seem to enjoy it more and to get more out of it, while people in the UK tend to find them a sad trial. Now I think that mingling social and professional contacts is vaguely unpleasant and it seems honest and charming that people in the UK honour the vague sense of disappointment and shabby awkwardness and sadness that hovers, like an unwanted guest, over most professional gatherings. We honour it by drinking too much, looking at our watches, and wishing we were home watching Lost instead of feeling it.

Thankfully, there's now an alternative. This is one of the great, unappreciated glories of the Web 2.0 revolution. By joining LinkedIn, and Plaxo, and Orkut, and Friendster, and Flickr, and Del.ici.ious, and Digg, and YouTube, and Second Life, we can now share our contacts, our friends, our photographs, our research, and everything else we care about without having to iron a shirt. You don't have to go to a London club, or eat mystery finger food, or wonder how you're going to expense the taxi fare home. Vote with your mouse. Stay home, and don't network except via ethernet cable.