The Pickup Artists of Networking

Spend too much time in the world of superlinked social site users, and they start to look like the seedy pickup artists in last year’s book The Game.

There’s the same sense of social norms being twisted into Machiavellian tools. Like pickup artists, superlinkers have their own language, tactics, and a dubious micro-industry.

One titan of that little crowd is Marc Freedman (aka “MyLinkDaddy”), a professional linker who runs “MyLinkClass,” a school for online networking. (Classes include “Master LinkedIn & MySpace” and “11 Dirty Little LinkedIn Secrets.”)

Marc’s reputation relies upon his own success with LinkedIn. So he proudly displays on his LinkedIn page that he has 17,000+ connections.

Except he doesn’t. Marc is one of the users connected to TopLinked, which lists the LinkedIn users with the most first-degree connections. And TopLinked can clearly see that Marc only has 3600 “friends” — and at least 112 users are more connected than he. Tsk, tsk, MrLinkDaddy. Work on those pickup lines and step up the pace.

TopLinked People on LinkedIn [Official page]

DallasBlue [Marc's class]

Marc Freedman, Marc@MyLinkDaddy.com [LinkedIn]

Read More: liars, linkedin, networking, social networks

*Originally published at Valleywag.

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Nick Douglas writes the Silicon Valley gossip rag Valleywag. On the side, he writes Fibonacci poetry and short stories about net-saturated life.