As Steve Yelvington notes today, Google's acquisition of the Dodgeball service is yet another shot across the bow for local news operations. I suspect many of them have no idea why, which is worrisome. (Steve's explanation will help.)
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May 2005
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May 12, 2005
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Highlights
- The Gathering Storms Over Speech
How an arrogant Apple Computer, cynical election law enforcers and well-meaning legislators are threatening tomorrow's journalists. - Where Newspapers Can Start the Conversation
On the Editorial Page, of course... - Newspapers: Open Your Archives
Maybe there's more money in "free" search than paid archives. There's certainly more community value. - The End of Objectivity
If objectivity is unattainable, let's replace it with something better.
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- Google's Toolbar Keeps Invasive Autolink
- Celebrating Political Sleaze
- Hyperlocal and Google
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- 05/07/05, Nashville
BlogNashville - 05/16/05, New York City
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D: All Things Digital
I took a quick look at the webpage and wasn't that impressed. Howard Rheingold wrote about stuff way better than this being in Japan five years ago, and this is just a bad knockoff of that so far. I like that they are trying to bring digital presence into the physical world, but they have a long way to go. Why not start by using the built in GPS or at the very least cell tower triangulation instead of having the user enter in their location? Right now this basically just amounts to being able to read peoples AIM away messages on your cellphone, with a couple scripts to sort through them to find those closest to you. Not a bad start, but they can do better.
Posted by: Alex Krupp | May 12, 2005 at 02:26 PM
Dan,
Yours is one of the few sites that I click through to from my RSS reader, and its completely for the comments. If you have an interesting topic, I know there's going to be a good discussion.
Posted by: Simon Pole | May 12, 2005 at 03:02 PM
Dan,
I can easily come to an understanding why google would buy dodgeball.com. What I do not understand is why or how this relates to local news operations.
This is not another means of news distribution, its simply a means of hooking up single, hormone abundant 20somethings easier (wish I had it).
So why did google buy it? It costs more for google to think about how to duplicate it than to buy it.
Between people asking how Gates IPOD/CellPhone comments and Dodgeball effect our business, the "movie" whould be called "98.com", the sequel.
On a final note - I have been asked to blog my thoughts and beliefs (people here have stumbled onto some of my blog feedbacks) and was asked to do so within our site. I explained that doing such is against our mission statement (taking advantage of our product to promote our own beliefs). What I did agree to though was to create a blog in typepad; so there goes my diary. As appropriate, I will be posting some reader statistics and habits from time to time which many within this circle may find interesting.
bob
Posted by: Robert Leonard | May 13, 2005 at 06:45 AM