Conference Networking Tools - Do They Work?

I just saw a post by Mark Oehlert - Good for introNetworks! - in which he points to introNetworks Secures $2.7 Million in Series A Funding.

In case you've not seen introNetworks before, they provide tools that allow membership groups to network with each other based on common interests. You may have seen them before and will likely remember their scatter plot:



There are other applications aimed at helping you to network at conferences:CMC Central - Tradeshow Appointments, Eveni Meeting MatchingExpoMATCH, eXtreme Networking, Introplus, Leverage Software, NetworkingMatch, and PowerMingle.com. I've both used some of these tools with different membership groups I belong to and I've recently gone through an evaluation process for a customer who does a large trade show. All of these are based on a matching algorithm.

Based on my personal results, I've not found a lot of value in these tools. It could be that we simply lack the skills to do the right things after finding people with common interests - see Conference Preparation and Be an Insanely Great Professional Conference Attendee.

Or maybe it's me. What's your experience with these tools?

For more discussions on networking and LinkedIn see Networking Events in Los Angeles and Southern California, Secret for Networking at Events – Prenetworking, Pre-network with LinkedIn, Local Event Organizers Need to Adopt Social Media.