They were men and women of all ages and ethnicities.

They worked in human resources, public relations, engineering, financial planning and career coaching.

They came together because of Chuck Hester and LinkedIn.com.

LinkedIn is a social networking Web site similar to MySpace or Facebook, but geared toward working professionals. Instead of building a network of online friends, you build a network of business contacts. The LinkedIn Web site has been around since 2003, the brainchild of Silicon Valley entrepreneur Reid Hoffman.

As more users in more industries join, LinkedIn is becoming an increasingly valuable networking tool.

Bosses are using it to find potential employees. Workers are using it to get new contacts in the companies they are interested in and to catch up with former co-workers.

And companies are adding it to their lists of places to check on the backgrounds of potential hires.

Hester, the director of communications for iContact, an e-mail marketing software company in Durham, got his job through LinkedIn.

"About a year ago, I was looking to make a change and looking for some ideas as to marketing folks," he said. "I'd been on LinkedIn and only had about 30 contacts at the time. Long story short, I connected with the CEO of this company and he was getting ready to post the director of PR job. He said, 'Let's get together,' and two weeks, later I had the job."

Hester now has more than 1,200 contacts in his LinkedIn network and uses them for all sorts of things, not just business.

LinkedIn lets users "ask your network a question," sending one message to all of or part of your network. That kind of query would take hours if you had to search through your e-mail address book, but it can be sent very quickly through LinkedIn.

"We're looking to refinance our home mortgage, so I put out a feeler and several people had recommendations, so we're sorting through that information," he said. "My wife found a person to do the logo for her blog on the network."

Hester said the most successful LinkedIn users are those who view it as a network of resources and not as a way to find a job.

"It's more of a talent pool than anything else," he said. "But when I need X, I can find a friend."

It was the desire to meet the people in his network that prompted Hester to arrange the event at O'Malley's.

"We were originally getting 10 people together, and now it's like 50," he said. "That's OK, though. I am a pay-it-forward networker. I am in my dream job, and I'm not going anywhere. So I'm connecting folks who need help."

There are 11 million LinkedIn users and more than 61,000 in the Raleigh-Durham area. As the site grows in popularity, people from more industries are signing up, expanding the potential for contacts.

In the Raleigh-Durham area, LinkedIn membership is growing at a rate of 15 percent a month, according to LinkedIn. That rate, the company says, is "slightly faster" than the overall rate of membership growth, probably because of the area's universities and high-tech focus.

For some young professionals, it's a way to participate in the phenomenon of social networking without feeling out of place on MySpace or Facebook, which are geared toward younger users, said David Chatham, account director for Raleigh communications firm Capstrat.

"MySpace to me is casual," he said. "I'm ashamed to say that if you go on my MySpace page, you'll see that I like big-hair rock groups. [LinkedIn] allows you to focus on your professional side."

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