Google buys Dodgeball

May 11 2005 - 09:55 PM ET | SMS

Dodgeball, a SMS based social networking service, has announced that Google has purchased the company. The two-person team that currently runs the service explained the move in their own words: bq. 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. Dodgeball is currently operational in 22 cities across the country. Like typical social networking sites, Dodgeball allows users to let the service know who their friends are. But unlike other services, the main point of Dodgeball is real-time hookups--text message your location to Dodgeball and your friends find out where you are. You can also find out if anyone else you know (or might know, Dodgeball uses friends of friends) is near by. Dodgeball is currently a free service. [via Gizmodo]

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