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This just goes to show that developing a unique idea that creates a community with a service that people can get behind can make you a success. Today, Google acquired its thirteenth third party company when they bought Dodgeball.com. If you are unfamiliar with Dodgeball’s service, here is a rundown:
Dodgeball is a service designed to get you in face-to-face contact with friends, friends of friends, and even crushes. All that is required is a cell phone with text messaging. You sign up for an account and give Dodgeball a list of email addresses for your friends. These people become a part of your network, as do any friends that they recommend when they sign up. The fun begins when you are out and about. You simply send a text message to Dodgeball as follows:
To: YourCity@dodgeball.com
Message: @NameLocation
Now, Dodgeball is available cost-free in just about every major US city. So if I were doing this from Seattle, I would send a text message to seattle@dodgeball.com, and if I were at the Space Needle then my message would be “@Space Needle”. Now Dodgeball goes to work. Any of my friends who are within a 10 block radius recieve an email and/or text message telling them “Your friend Andru is at Space Needle [address here]. Why not stop by and say hi?” It is simple a great meetup tool. Now, you can format your message in different ways so that instead of contacting your friends, it will send you back a list of friends of friends in the area. You can even just typ in a destination, and it will send you a message back telling you the address and cross streets. Google obviously aw the potential in this service, as have many of its users. If you live in a major US city, check them out at www.dodgeball.com.
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Businesses based in Seattle has a new high speed data alternative available to them which launched this past week. Speakeasy has put a Pre-WiMax antenna at the top of the world famous Space Needle. In conjunction with Intel and Alvarion, Speakeasy has made it known that the high speed network will cover a five-mile radius around the city’s most famous landmark, offering customers two data plans to choose from. Bruce Chaterly, Speakeasy CEO, announced that this is the biggest deployment of this technology thus far in North America with six towers in total having been erected in the city. Of course, with bleeding edge technology comes high prices. For a 3.0 Gb bandwidth plan, the price is $500 per month. There is also a 6.0 Gb plan which can be had for $800 per month. At first glance, this looks a bit steep - however, many companies pay about $500 per month for a 1.5 Gb T1 connection. Check out the details on Speakeasy’s WiMax page.
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