[X4]

You suggest good SEO. Ok.

Counterexample, use the power of a Botnet to do something unorthodox, dive into the grayzone, get media attention. Hustle

Hitting the right persons nerves will again trigger success or failure. If you gain respect this way you probably will get attention. Your responsibility then is to react timely. If you do it wrong, you could get negative reactions, which could be good for SEO, but bad for credit/respect.

But the first thing I would suggest you to do in order to join a network is simply to join a related network that persons inside of your desired network are in. Sports/Clubs/Organizations/etc.

[mindcrime]

You suggest good SEO. Ok. Counterexample, use the power of a Botnet to do something unorthodox, dive into the grayzone, get media attention. Hustle

Under the right circumstances, I'm not opposed to doing the unorthodox (I might skip the botnet though), and I agree that hustle is important and getting media attention is good. I just wanted to share some of the obvious stuff that jumped to mind immediately.

You saying that reminds me of another resource of interest: Ryan Holiday's book Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator.[1] There's some interesting stuff in there about manipulating the media. You could almost think of it as "black hat PR".

[1]: http://trustmeimlying.com/

[X4]

Thank you for the smart input!

I'll put the book into my reading list.

[leoedin]

I think most people have quite effective asshole detectors. If you get noticed because you used a botnet to spam your site, that will do serious damage to your credibility amongst almost anyone you might want to work with. If your aim is respect amongst black hat hackers, then perhaps it would be effective, but in the context of startups I can't see how that would be desireable. People don't go into business with someone they can't trust, and nothing screams untrustworthy like promoting yourself with a botnet.