If you believe Matt Cutts then there are better ways to spend your time.
Google has moved the playing field and simple text links are almost counter productive, Pyramid linkbuilding is no longer worth the effort but Contextual Links will get you an almost immediate SERPS improvement.
If you watch the latest video by Matt Cutts, Google's own guru, you will learn that contexturl backlinks now have the most value.
Contexturl backlinks are links placed inside an article or blog post that are in the context of their surrounding text, so they look natural.
For example an article on firefighting might have links to a firestation URL. These are quite time consuming to create and invariably need an image to get maximum Google juice.
For anyone planning to create backlinks I recommend you to take 3 minutes to watch the Matt Cutts video on
http://autoseosystem.com
If you recognise the change he speaks about. then afterwards use their FREE software to create some contextual articles embedded with your own URL.