Notorious Beam Team

I've been meaning to write a post about Dodgeball for a while now.



It's a brilliant social networking service that not only allows for contact with your list of online friends but also allows you to tell your list of friends to meet up with you if they are in the area. So imagine if you are having a swift gentleman's half after work - you send a text to Dodgeball which tells all your friends within a 10 block radius to come and have a drink with you if they're feeling thirsty.

Currently the service is booming in the States with coverage over 22 cities.

There was a fascinating article in the New York Times about the phenomenon for such social networking sites. The exciting thing for us is that it helps to bring the connections you make in the virtual world into reality.

"I'M 24 years old, have a good job, friends. But like many of my generation, I consistently trade actual human contact for the more reliable emotional high of smiles on MySpace, winks on Match.com and pokes on Facebook. I live for Friendster views, profile comments and the Dodgeball messages that clog my cellphone every night.

I prefer, in short, a world cloaked in virtual intimacy. It may be electronic, but it is intimacy nevertheless. Besides, eye contact isn't all it's cracked up to be and facial expressions can be so hard to control. My life goes like this: Every morning, before I brush my teeth, I sign in to my Instant Messenger to let everyone know I'm awake. I check for new e-mail, messages or views, bulletins, invitations, friend requests, comments on my blog or mentions of me or my blog on my friends' blogs.
Next I flip open my phone and check for last night's Dodgeball messages. Dodgeball is the most intimate and invasive network I belong to. It links my online community to my cellphone, so when I send a text message to 36343 (Dodge), the program pings out a message with my location to all the people in my Dodgeball network. Acceptance into another person's Dodgeball network is a very personal way to say you want to hang out." (Theodora Stites)

This article from Spectrum offers an excellent overview of the service.