John Battelle's Searchblog

It's social networking/self-identified location based SMS service. Users can add online their favorite social locations (bars, clubs, etc.) I imagine Google will couple some advertising or tie-in with their Google Local [Mobile] Search

Who gets bought by google then goes down. Can anyone else get to the site?

Very clever -- they continue to work to extend their relevant advertising reach beyond search results...

Some">http://zoominfo.blogs.com/soughtafter/2005/05/google_buys_dod.html">Some thoughts here...

I couldn't access it yesterday either, Joe. However, it seems to be back up as of this morning.

A quick comment on this. I think this is a pretty much useless purchase for Google. Unless they're planning on buying Dodgeball for its brand name and plan to use that brand for a broad-based social-networking service for people other than just mobile text-messaging types, it doesn't do much. They would've been better off building out Orkut into the mobile space, either by buying a mobile technology or building one organically. Ultimately though, the Orkut name has got to go and I think they should dump the technology, too. Google should've bought Tickle before Monster Worldwide scooped it up... but that's another matter. ;)

Cheers,
Doug

I got on the site today and I was thinking the same thing Doug. I think it is possible they bought it to get the the guys that created the site.

It is well designed and a fun concept. These guys have done a great job.

Maybe Google hasn't totaly converted to care only about the bottom line. They made the idea famous, 20% of the time is spent working on "cool sh!t". I think it's great.

John - I'm surprised you don't know much about dodgeball -- they were featured in Wired magazine at least three times, and Wired tried to coin a new term using dodgeball as a paradigm, namely "MoSoSo"... Mobile Social Software. Congrats to Dennis and Alex. I know Dennis and it couldn't happen to a nicer (or more enthusiastic) guy -- they're totally focused on creating cool new features and for a long time were the only group I saw that really understood what would make sense at the intersection of profile, location and device. We'll see how it goes with Google's support, but I'm pretty confident they'll be building some great new stuff.

It seems that Dodgeball.com is an idea ahead of its time (at least in the U.S.). Meanwhile, it's merely a hint as to what's to come once the wireless backbone and supporting technologies improve (as experienced in Korea and Japan).

Beyond the novelty and solid execution, Dodgeball.com has a great name and logo.

ooo..babyyh

You are rite, I am sure they are going to merge dodgeball and orkut. I think Dodgeball is a very good application as per technology.