That's not quite what I meant. Maybe it's exclusive to programmers, but newsgroups, blogs, and sites like HN, GitHub, StackOverflow, and Twitter all serve to al

That's not quite what I meant. Maybe it's exclusive to programmers, but newsgroups, blogs, and sites like HN, GitHub, StackOverflow, and Twitter all serve to allow someone to distinguish themselves and be recognized by their peers. If networking simply means getting drunk and chatting, online or no, then I fail to see how that's helpful as a career-builder.