Early-career researchers and entrepreneurs benefit from strong online social networks, finds a study published earlier this month. Peter Gloor, who studies innovation at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, and his colleagues analysed the LinkedIn, Facebook and e-mail networks of thousands of US and Swiss researchers and entrepreneurs (P. A. Gloor et al. Int. J. Organ. Des. Eng. 3, 67–85; 2013). Those with extended networks that included contacts who were eminent in their fields were most successful according to measures such as publications, grants and venture funding. “Networking is crucial,” concludes Gloor.