Dodgeball dumps Google
p2pnet.net news:- The guys at Dodgeball have had a gut-full of Google.
“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,” said founders Dennis Crowley and Alex Rainert said almost exactly a year ago.
“They looked at us in a ‘You’re two guys doing some pretty cool stuff, why not let us help you out and let’s see what you can do with it’ type of way’,” they said at the time.
But they’ve since found out all that glitters ain’t necessarily gold.
So, “Alex and I quit Google on Friday,” they say in a Flickr post, going on:
It’s no real secret that Google wasn’t supporting dodgeball the way we expected. The whole experience was incredibly frustrating for us – especially as we couldn’t convince them that dodgeball was worth engineering resources, leaving us to watch as other startups got to innovate in the mobile + social space. And while it was a tough decision (and really disappointing) to walk away from dodgeball, I’m actually looking forward to getting to work on other projects again.
So, what’s next? Starting today (Monday!) I’m joining the kids at area/code who are knee-deep in building all sorts of Big Games (remember PacManhattan? ConQwest?). Alex is moving on to IconNicholson where he took a gig as a Creative Strategist focusing on mobile and emerging technologies. (And sorry, but I don’t know what Google has planned for dodgeball going forward.)
ps: Clear your calendar for this Saturday (April 21). A whole crew of us are dj’ing to celebrate our escape. (details + invite coming soon!)
Quoted by CNET News, “Google understands the important role social networking plays in today’s mobile eco-system, and we are constantly looking at ways to provide a great user experience in this area,” says a statement. “Dodgeball was an early attempt at understanding user needs in this space and we are continuing to evolve our thinking and our offerings. However, we have nothing to announce at this time.”
Also See:
until we met Google – Google buys dodgeball.com, May 12, 2006
Flickr – me + alex quit google. (dodgeball forever!!!!), April 15, 2007
CNET News – Google confirms Dodgeball departures, April 17, 2007
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April 19th, 2007 at 7:05 pm
I wonder if youre posting this because it involves p2p, oh wait no it doesnt, or if youre posting this because it’s a chance to bash google and gain traffic hits. Sigh. I can’t imagine that I’m the only who is very very close to removing p2pnet from their feed list, am I?
i want the old p2pnet back.