Dodgeball: Text Your Location To Friends

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?

If i'm waiting for friends and i have a mobile, why wouldn't I just ring or sms them anyway?

Re:Ring them?

Ah, but if you have more than five friends, it could become taxing to do it yourself. Why not be lazy and let a server do it for you?

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...

Re:Ring them?

GPS? it almost does. Remember WAP/WML and our friends at http://www.openwave.com/ [openwave.com]?

They have this thing called a 'location server' and if you (wap developer) pay the service provider ( verizon, telus... ) they will add a extra header your wap/wml requests that contain your current location. ( accuracy depends on positioning methods that are being used, cell-id, EOTD (enhanced observed time difference), AGPS ( assisted GPS ) and can range between 1000 meter to 5 meters.

I thought it would be a blast to play with, but I have not found any way to get the info for free without using their 'simulator' deck viewer.

Re:Ring them?

You clearly don't go out with a large (constantly changing) group of friends.

Sure, when there's 2-3 of you regulraly going out it's easy to coordinate. Once you have 20-30 people in a group of friends, some of which are coming out on a given night, and some which aren't then it gets extremely tedious to:

a) Invite that many people to begin with and not forget anyone.
b) Keep track of who's coming out that night and who isn't.
c) Continually update people who haven't yet arrived as to where you are right now.

Re:Ring them?

Once you have 20-30 people in a group of friends.....

...you have to start coming up with better excuses to avoid them.

It's Saturday Night!

I M IN MOMS BSMNT. LOL.

Have we really gotten that lazy...

Is it that hard to call a few people on the phone, or heaven forbid talk to someone at work or school to make plans? I don't understand this recent fascination with multi-tasking on your phone. I must be out of touch with the hip crowd, because I only use my phone to talk to people. No games, no sms messages, no camera.

Sometimes I even turn my phone off when I am out somewhere. It's no fun to always feel like you're pinned down by technology. These days no one gets to unplug and have time to themselves because no matter where you are there are 5 ways to get ahold of you.

Just my 2 cents.

It's the Primate Adolescent Elimination Program.

I don't understand this recent fascination with multi-tasking on your phone. I must be out of touch with the hip crowd, because I only use my phone to talk to people. No games, no sms messages, no camera.

Adolescent primates try out new things and see how they work. (Typically one of the things they try is breaking one major taboo.)

Sometimes it works out very well. Then they are wildly successful and teach the rest of the primates (starting with their family and cronies) about a new food source, technique, etc.

Sometimes it's a disaster. Then they die.

Most of the time it's just interesting to them and maybe fun for a while, then it gets old and gets dropped.

Adolescence is the right time for this sort of behavior. Adolescents are mature enough that they're not likely to fail just through lack of strength, knowldege or skill. But less of the rest of the tribe's resources are sunk by their loss, and their loss is less damaging to the tribe's future, than if they pull this and lose later in life, say once they have young to raise and others who have become dependent on them. Thus do post-adolescents become more conservative, and less experimental and risk-taking, once they have accepted major long-term responsibilities.

Re:Have we really gotten that lazy...

Is it that hard to call a few people on the phone, or heaven forbid talk to someone at work or school to make plans?

You talk about lazy, then immediately mention the telephone, a device used for long distance communication. You could just as easily write a letter to tell your friends, or call it out in the public square. Different technologies add ease - telephone is easier than a letter (or trekking across town when you really want to meet your friend in the middle). This is easier than calling up 40 friends.

Just because a technology is old doesn't mean it's any better, and just because it's new, it doesn't mean it sucks.

Network Assumptions

This assumes all the people you associate with share the same network (ie click) without any overlap from other networks. But I suppose as you introduce and get introduced to more people you start to expand.

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

What's the name of the service that lets people check out profiles of people near them via their cell phone and IM them to meet them somewhere? I heard about that on TV I think. This good-looking woman looked at profiles of singles in her immediate area, found one she wanted to meet, and IMed him to meet her at some street-side cafe or something like that. Is that an actual service now or just something some marketing guy thinks will happen someday? It could be cool. Then again you could be IMing the next David Berkowitz [wikipedia.org] to meet you.

How does the site make money?

Every time someone comes up with a new technology application on the 'Net, people want to judge whether it will be successful or not without thinking about the NUMBER ONE factor - how does a business succeed based on this technology?

This is why Silicon Valley VCs keep fucking up left, right and center. They can't seem to figure out that a business has to make money, regardless of the technology in question.

Re:How does the site make money?

how does a business succeed based on this technology?

Why are you letting those pesky little details get in the way? These guys are Visionary Thought Leaders! Start looking at the Big Picture! See? It's there on your phone! And, you can send that picture TO people!

Re:How does the site make money?

Not quite- there's different types of success going on.

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?

Ads based on physical location.

Dude: "I'm at Joe's!"

Dodgeball: "Your friend is nearby at Andy's, but Jack's has happy hour right now."

Your Guide to Comments on This Story

Step 1. Comment how this falsely assumes that Geeks have social lives.

Step 2: Insert comment about text messaging from your parent's basement.

Step 3: ???

Step 4: Karma!

Step 5: CowboyNeal

it's much more than just that..

I saw these guys presentation at Oreilly's etech conference in Feb... and it does a whole host of geolocation type services.

IT's really quite slick the little sms/email query system they came up with.

It has access to geocoded data, so if you tell the service about your location, besides telling your friends where you are, it can tell you that their's 50 cent drafts down the block... or you can ask it where the closest bar with a pac man or pooltable...

Obviously, this makes the most sense and is the most useful, in a dense urban area filled with younger/hipper crowd with a mobile phone less than 3 years old =P

There are a lot of cool geolocation based social implications... cool spontaneous flash mob type stuff.

In short, I wish I thought of it =( bastages!

e.

Wait a second...

Why was "FBI" just added to my friends list?

Potential for Annoyance: 100%

I can see this becoming annoying quite quickly. If you had just one friend who used this, but you actually had a life (that wasn't completely dependent on them), you'd constantly get pathetic messages on your phone, despite the fact that you don't want to hang out with them every night of the week. It would only take one overly extroverted person to annoy dozens of normal people.

Just add GPS

If they added GPS to the mix and an autotrack function (with "do not disturb/do not track" toggle, of course) then people could use the service without having to stop all the time and text the server. The minute you move more than 50 feet from your "official" location, the GPS would recompute and resend a new update. As long as you are in motion, it sends a "Not stationary" message. Once you arrive, it notices the stabilization in position and sends the new locale (maybe reverse lookup to provide a street addy or the name of the club).

Just don't tell your employer that you have this.

There goes my alibi

What if I don't want people knowing where I am at all times? Unless this is something you can turn off, I don't see people climbing on board too readily. Think about all those people that are unfaithful within their social circle. It would be kind of strange to know your significant other is always within a couple miles of someone else in your social circle. If nothing is going on, I bet you still find people that get jealous off of this "evidence." Too much technology is a bad thing sometimes. I know. I just read it. I can't believe I said it either.

Given the name "Dodgeball"...

Given that the name of the service is called Dodgeball, I presume that the target audience is the fat slow-moving kids with the glasses. You know, the uncoordinated, clumsy ones who are socially inept and... post on... Slashdot...

Hey, You know what they need here? An Unpost Button.

One thing must be assumed, however...

Is that the people participating actually leave their houses on the weekends...

Dodgeball_SMS(7:30p)Slashdotter_Location: Bedroom
Dodgeball_SMS(8:00p)Slashdotter_Location: Bathroom
Dodgeball_SMS(8:30p)Slashdotter_Location : Bedroom

This could be really useful

for stalkers.

Social networking tool centered around bookmarks

Hah, usefulness of social networking sites. I always wondered what the point of Orkut was.

In any case, take a look at Simpy [simpy.com] (demo [simpy.com] or tour [simpy.com]) for an example of a useful social (networking tool) that is centered around bookmarks (i.e. something that is actually useful).

Big Brother is Tracking You.

Use of this service leaves a record at the server of your location, movements, and who you are associating with.

Maybe the fun is worth it. Maybe not. But if you subscribe, you might want to be careful about who your friends are. If they screw up with the law, the law might just decide you're a gang member, vandal, or terrorist. B-(

geolocation is augmented reality's killer app.

This sort of thing seems more like the killer app for augmented reality (computer-assisted vision) than for cell phones and SMS messages.

Caveat emptor: Augmented reality does not yet exist in a workable fashion (but it's getting there.)

Combine one of these: http://eyetap.org/
with a geolocation service, and you could do things like, looking at a building and gathering information about its ammenities, contact information (a phone number, a Zagatsurvey rating, etc) and also a list of who, on your contact list, may be inside/in the proximity.

a kind of personal tracking sort of thing.

Dodgeball?

I think this service would be more useful for avoiding encounters with people whose company you abhor.

Hence the name "dodgeball."

Bruce Sterling's Killer App.

In Bruce Sterling's short story "Maneki Neko", everyone has a pda/cellphone thing with pervasive wireless networking and GPS. The folks in the story are part of a P2P network whose symbol is 'Maneki Neko', and whose function is to automates a gift economy.

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?

Nice to have one of my predictions coming true...

Well, it's nice to be right about something for once. It looks an awful lot like one of my predictions is coming true, and roughly on schedule, see this usenet post from January 1, 2001 [google.com]:

Well excuse the tangent, but this reminds me of something I've been thinking about lately. It strikes me that the really compulsive cell phone people seem to be just nervously checking each other's movements. E.g. "I'm on the train, no it isn't late, I'll be there in 20 minutes." (I paraphrase... actually it seems to take them about 5 minutes of repetitious back-and-forth to get out a simple message like that.)

I predict that within five years, you will see people voluntarily wearing location transponders, so that people can take out their palm computers, and quickly identify the locations of all members of their virtual tribe. "Oh, look, Jason, Chelsea and Talbot are all over at the Roaring Sushi Dome. Let's go join them there."

Then you get into the evolution of customs for things like initiation into the tribe, rules of etiquette for when you're allowed to have your transponder on or off, quasi-legal proceedings for ejection and shunning, and so on.

And I guess this is somewhat reminscent of some stuff from the middle novels of Benford's "Galaxy" series (e.g. "Flushed down the Toilet of the Gods", or whatever it was called).