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Google Acquires Dodgeball
kalki writes "Dodgeball.com, a service that uses mobile phones to help people meet up with friends who are in the same location, said on its website on Wednesday that it has been bought by Web search leader Google Inc. Also available on the official site is a Q&A about the deal." From the article: "As a two-person team, Alex and I have taken dodgeball about a far as we can alone. Since we finished grad school, we've been trying to figure out how to grow dodgeball and make it a better service along the way. We talked to a lot of different angel investors and venture capitalists, but no one really 'got' what we were doing - that is until we met Google."
Wait, so now google helps you search a crowd for a friend of yours? I can dig it.
Your sig(k) has been stolen. There is a puff of smoke!
The next microsoft??
Anyone else think Google may be the next Microsoft? With the way they are buying every company under the sun they seem to be taking a page out of Microsoft's handbook. Luckily it seems they skipped the chaper on being a spawn of Satan and everything.
but, could there be a possibility of integrating this feature with google maps or google local eventually? Google local search of "what bar are my friends hanging out at tonight?" drop down some phone numbers, get a google map to where they are.
It's New York City, it's location based, and it's more than GPS...
I'm guessing they use the same tech which lets cellphone towers figure out your location for 911 calls. Is there anyway to access this locational information without having to pay the cell companies for the technology?
One thing to watch is the post acquisition. Google's really didn't do much for Orkut. While Friendster continually builds a user base and adds features, Orkut remains slow and bug ridden.
www.lonseidman.com
that Google will know where I am, too?
This is absolutely not true. I have met these guys, and friends of mine have helped Dens and Alex in certain ways through this process, and they were definitely offered plenty of money from other sources.
I remember reading a cartoon one of these days where basically before a job interview, the interviewer starts to mention all this "nasty" stuff about the interviewee because he checked the interviewee's Orkut and found all the groups where he belongs to, etc. I've also heard about people getting dumped because of Orkut. Many people have already closed their accounts because of this. If you are evil, you can find out A LOT about the person's life and do them harm.
Obviously dodgeball does not fall into this category, but it makes me think about all the services Google has planned. Obviously that overall they do more good than harm, but I can't help but think that some of this will be abused and used by organized crime, identity theft etc.
Think about it.
Now mix those three together. I wonder how far Google will go in integrating these services, and how much care they will take in preventing abuse. We'll just have to wait and see.
Ah, interesting. If you've read Paul Graham's latest essay and last night's thread [1] on Slashdot, you'll find this paragraph from Paul'e essay rather interesting and timely:
5 06957
"What companies should do is go out and discover startups when they're young, before VCs have puffed them up into something that costs hundreds of millions to acquire."
[1] http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=149177&cid=12
[2] http://simpy.com/ - 1-man mini Google
Simpy
I believe it was stated on John Battelle's weblog that search is the center of gravity for the computer industry .
what's the use of a system that helps you "meet up with friends who are in the same location"? ... If you are in the same location, haven't you already met up with them?
You fail to understand the power of marketting. These conversations happen using AIM on their Verizon phones. Teeny bopper 1 to Teeny bopper 2: Meet me at the mall after school, k? Teeny bopper 2 to Teeny bopper 1: Alright! Teeny bopper 1 to mom: Can you pick us up at the mall at 8? mom to Teeny bopper 1: Which entrance? Teeny bopper 1 to mom: Use dodgeball silly...
Your sig(k) has been stolen. There is a puff of smoke!
Here's a scenario for you. Me and a friend were out sportbike riding around MtBaker, we were into some twisties I was slightly behind my buddy. I look to the left and see a group of fellow Canadians at the side of the road it looks like there's a problem. I start flashing my hi beam and honking my horn but my partner is in Ducati World and sees nothing but the next corner to attack. So I turn around and figure he will notice sooner or l8tor and turn around. It turns out This fellow lost it in a corner, he was ok but his vfr was bent, we straightened the front end as best we could, then they headed back home and I continued on to hook back up with my partner. I checked the restaurant at the parking lot of the ski hill but while I was there my partner went by the other way. I never found him. by the time was able to get him on his phone he was back at the border and I was having lunch at the next tavern. If we could have stopped and located each other using this it would have been a better day.
Many a long talk since then I have had with the man in the moon; he had my confidence on the voyage. Joshua Slocum
This is going to be huge. Not only are you going to be near a freind, you will be near 3 shops that have ads with google. It may get annoying, but they have to pay for this somehow.
Religion and politics, without the flame. godgab.org
The US Government has long had influence in Google acquisition and development strategies, ask Google directly, they wont lie, but you *will* get a standard "we cant confirm or deny" style response. There are several dedicated pipes that are purely for government use and have full access to all personally identifiable information without requiring approval from Google top brass.
Did nobody notice the top line of the page? The poster of this story included a Session ID variable in the query string, and apparently dodgeball does a terrible job with security, because now we're all logged in as rekcah5. Wow. Hopefully Google helps out a bit.