Bill Gates hasn’t given up on social networking altogether: The Microsoft chairman just joined LinkedIn, a networking Web site for professionals.

LinkedIn contacted Gates after reading on the Business Technology Blog that he had quit using Facebook, Kay Lou, LinkedIn’s director of corporate communications, tells us. It turns out that Bill Gates is the most searched for person on LinkedIn – Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are numbers two and three respectively – and Lou thought it would be quite the coup if her company could sign up the tech titan. (There were several fake Gates profiles, which have since been deleted, as well as dozens of other Bill Gates’s with legitimate, albeit less sought after, profiles.) After talking to a few intermediaries, Gates agreed.

In his new profile, the Microsoft chairman describes himself as a technologist and a philanthropist, and lists reading, tennis and bridge as his interests. Gates only has two contacts and odds are he won’t be adding more, Lou tells us.

Here’s one reason: The new profile is going live just as Microsoft launches an ad campaign on LinkedIn, giving cynics reason to question Gates’s motives. But there are practical reasons to doubt Gates’s desire to network as well. LinkedIn is designed to help professionals make introductions to other professionals. And Bill Gates isn’t the kind of guy who needs an introduction. In fact, there aren’t a lot of tech bigwigs who do.

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