Google acquires dodgeball.com

by David Evans on May 12, 2005 · 3 comments

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Congratulations to the dodgeball team. Now they have the resources and support of Google to help them bring it to the next level. Corante ran a profile of dodgeball.com in our Future of Wireless series where you can read about this fascinating service.

Corante coverage of Dodgeball dating back to 2003. More details of the deal at dodgeball.com.

Tagged as: Mobile

{ 3 comments }

Daniel P Dykes 05.12.05 at 10:25 pm: It’s a brilliant stroke of genious for Google to aquire Dodgeball. While the latter is set off the scope for those outside of the US (I’m not even sure how popular it is within the States) it’s coupling with Google is really going to help promote it. At the same time it really gives Google another area to attract consumers. Even if it never brought them in a single cent directly it would help attract a new mass of consumers wishing to use their technology, much like the iPod has seen a horde of people turning away from the Windows O/S and start using a Mac. The iPod and Windows aren’t directly related but the flow on effect certainly is there, and it could have this sort of influence for Google at the very least.
Dave Evans 05.13.05 at 8:54 am: Dodgeball is not well known in the states outside of the social networking early adopters and you are correct that they will benefit from the resources Google is able to provide. Dodgeball is like 2.5G phones in that it wears the colors of location-based services but is based on user input instead of lat/long data, i.e. half-way to true GPS driven services.
Daniel P Dykes 05.13.05 at 7:22 pm: Given that it uses 2.5G, I wonder if Google will at all be interested in investing in 3G media? RSVP in Australia has a deal with the mobile company 3 whereby they are a media content provider. I read recently that the feature is doing quite well, even though it’s a basic search and message device. Being Google they may just skip 3G and wait for 4G - which is already being experimented with in Australia in terms of rollout - as it would be far more powerful a tool.