Dodgeball (service)
| The Dodgeball logo from the website | |
| Company type | Subsidiary of Google since 2005. |
|---|---|
| Genre | Social Networking |
| Founded | 2000 |
| Founder | Dennis Crowley and Alex Rainert |
| Defunct | Shutdown in February 2009 |
| Fate | acquired by Google in 2005, |
| Successor | Google Latitude / foursquare_(service) |
Key people | Dennis Crowley and Alex Rainert |
| Owner | |
| Parent | |
Dodgeball was a location-based social networking software provider for mobile devices. Users text their location to the service, which then notifies them of crushes, friends, friends' friends and interesting venues nearby.[1] Dodgeball was shut down by Google in March, 2009 and replaced with Google Latitude.
Overview
Dodgeball was founded in 2000 by New York University students Dennis Crowley and Alex Rainert, and was acquired by Google in 2005.[2]The service was shutdown in February 2009 after the launch of Google Latitude.
In April 2007, Crowley and Rainert left Google, with Crowley describing their experience there as "incredibly frustrating."[3] They have since created a similar service known as Foursquare.[4]
Dodgeball was available for the cities of Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, San Diego, Phoenix, Dallas/Fort Worth, Austin, Houston, New Orleans, Miami, Atlanta, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Detroit, Chicago, Madison, Minneapolis/St. Paul and Denver.[1]
In January 2009 Vic Gundotra, Vice President of Engineering at Google, announced that the company would "discontinue Dodgeball.com in the next couple of months, after which this service will no longer be available."[5] Dodgeball was succeeded in February 2009 by Google Latitude. [6]
