Dodgeball: Text Your Location To Friends 227
iseff writes "I was listening to NPR yesterday in the car and they ran a piece about this new service called Dodgeball. It's essentially a social networking site, except it's based pretty extensively on text messaging. When you go out for the night, you txt the main dodgeball server your location. It then txt's your friends where you are so they can meet you. It can also tell you who is close-by where you are and how you are connected to those people. It seems like a more 'sticky' and applicable use for social networking when compared to Friendster or orkut (which are always very popular when they launch and then quickly fade). Could this maybe be a decent use to social networking that will last? Or will this bust just as fast?"
Ring them? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Ring them? (Score:5, Interesting)
It would be cooler if the phone had an integrated GPS, you sent the coordinate with "the touch of a button," it figured out the location (which bar) and then notified your friends with the place name. This lets you be even lazier! Their phones could even provide walking directions if they're already drunk...
Network Assumptions (Score:5, Interesting)
Again...maybe you don't want others (even if they're your friends) joining in on your party for the night.
Watch enough Seinfeld and you'll notice the buddies of Jerry, George, Kramer, and Elaine often clash. Obviously something like this wouldn't go too well in this case.
Meet people via cell phones (Score:4, Interesting)
Just add GPS (Score:5, Interesting)
Just don't tell your employer that you have this.
Re:Ring them? (Score:2, Interesting)
There goes my alibi (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:How does the site make money? (Score:5, Interesting)
Technological success: people use and enjoy the technology. This type of success will outlive its parent company. Either other companies will start if the parent fails or an open equivalent will appear.
Financial success: will the company make money off this? Helped by the first, but not strictly necessary.
Buisnesses making money is the provence of the second success. The technology can still be a success and the company can flop.
Re:How does the site make money? (Score:5, Interesting)
Dude: "I'm at Joe's!"
Dodgeball: "Your friend is nearby at Andy's, but Jack's has happy hour right now."
Re:Ring them? (Score:3, Interesting)
Google was looking to buy this.... (Score:1, Interesting)
They did a big demo and it worked flawlessly.
The concept is simple enough. Just a simple way to let you know when your friends are nearby. Or when people of the same interest are nearby.
I honestly think it could go either way. Fly or flop.
Personally, I think there will be a niche market for it, but that's about it.
Anyhow, whether or not Google bites, only time will tell.
Now... anonymous or not... eenie meenie miney MO!
Don't need the Karma, and you don't need to know.
Bruce Sterling's Killer App. (Score:5, Interesting)
Say you're in the coffee shop, buying a cup. The PDA buzzes, says 'buy two'. So you do. You walk out with two, it buzzes again: 'give it to the hung-over chap on the bench'. He's psyched, even though he didn't order it, it's what he needed. Since the network has some idea of what you have purchased, what you need, where you are, what you've been doing, and what you have extra of, it efficiently moves goods (and without spoiling the story, personal services) around without there being anyone in charge. And since we have databases, fourteen people don't show up with coffees for the poor lush.
In the story, the main character is having a baby. Unsolicited baby clothes (for the correct sex) show up in the mail, along with toys, etc, sent by total strangers, because their PDA told them to. Presumably they had extra, or their child had outgrown it, or whatever. And since the network often benefits them, they have an incentive to comply with its requests, when they can.
Now other than the rampant privacy problems involved in a world that has such devices and services working seamlessly on a global scale, doesn't it sound cool? And since we're going to end up with a world that has such devices and services working (we hope) seamlessly on a global scale, should we not make such a thing?
Re:Have we really gotten that lazy... (Score:2, Interesting)
pwb.
Nice to have one of my predictions coming true... (Score:3, Interesting)
Connecting WiFi to Dodgeball (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Ring them? (Score:2, Interesting)
UK got there first? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Bruce Sterling's Killer App. (Score:3, Interesting)
There are several such networks, and entering one is volunterly. The compete with each other, and in particular with the conventional economy, to which they are a threat since the gift economy is not taxed.
A gift network can only be corrupted to the level where it no longer benefits the members, after that they will obviously leave.
So in summary: It does not go against human nature, unless you believe that "helping other in order to help yourself" goes against human nature. Yes, you can be a computer criminal in that economy, just as you can in the conventional economy (by hacking into a banks central database). But the amount of damage you can do is less, since the economy is less centralized.
It would however undermine the central autority (government), so they would never allow it. Not that they did in the story.