Comments on: SXSW Showdown: Dodgeball Vs. Twitter

By: CrowdVine Blog » Blog Archive » How to think about social media?

CrowdVine Blog » Blog Archive » How to think about social media? — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 19:44:36 +0000

[...] an example of even professionals getting it wrong, a 2007 review comparing two social software services, Twitter and Dodgeball. The review, from the leading news [...]

By: The Real Lessons From Twitter « LocalLab : Foire aux Infos

The Real Lessons From Twitter « LocalLab : Foire aux Infos — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 16:06:45 +0000

[...] social software despite active, growing communities. Consider this early TechCrunch article, Dodgeball vs. Twitter, where the author (not Arrington) insists that the way to compare software is feature by feature. [...]

By: Michael Blix

Michael Blix — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 00:04:42 +0000

I think Twitter won out more to do with it’s name: it’s more amenable to people using it in various forms: twit, tweet, twitteratti. etc. Perhaps if they named the app Dodgeballr (notice the ‘r’ at the end) things would have been different.

By: Stubbleblog » Blog Archive » The Real Lessons From Twitter

Stubbleblog » Blog Archive » The Real Lessons From Twitter — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 20:45:27 +0000

By: Bill

Bill — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 05:55:21 +0000

Oh Please. Twitter is to 2009 as Second Life was to 2006. Once it stops being cool to talk about, people will tire of posting & tracking what they and their friends had for breakfast.

http://en.wikip...emiumgrowth.png

By: Jim Posner

Jim Posner — Fri, 29 May 2009 14:55:54 +0000

Blake-
How about a little humility? A simple “I got it wrong, twitter turned out to have mass appeal” would suffice.

By: Chris Sacca “Users distinguish success from failure” - The Next Web

Chris Sacca “Users distinguish success from failure” - The Next Web — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 19:15:13 +0000

[...] how you used it [Dodgeball was a 2007 Twitter competitor which actually got the heads-up from Techcrunch in a showdown]. I underestimated Twitter’s potential. It allowed me to be in contact with people who I [...]

By: SXSW: Foursquare Scores Despite Its Flaws - Tech News

SXSW: Foursquare Scores Despite Its Flaws - Tech News — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 17:42:28 +0000

[...] think it’s safe to say that foursquare was not the must-have app of SXSW the way Twitter was two years ago. But it had a strong showing, and once I actually figured out which of my friends were using the [...]

By: WIRELESS « Daily Marauder

WIRELESS « Daily Marauder — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 04:54:20 +0000

[...] I think it’s safe to say that foursquare was not the must-have app of SXSW the way Twitter was two years ago. But it had a strong showing, and once I actually figured out which of my friends were using the [...]

By: SXSWにて：Foursquareは欠陥もあるが成功

SXSWにて：Foursquareは欠陥もあるが成功 — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 03:21:20 +0000

[...] 今年のSXSWイベントが始まる前、何人かのブロガーが予想していたところによると、今年の堀り出し物はfoursquareという新しい位置情報ベースのソーシャルアプリにゲームの味付けをしたもので、作ったのはあの今はなきDodgeballサービスを作った連中だということだった。イベントの「インタラクティブ」部門が終った今、私が思うにfoursquareは、2年前のTwitterのような「SXSWに必携のアプリ」ではなかったというべきだろう。それでも大きな支持を集めていて、友人が実際にこれを使っていることを知って（実は思うほど簡単にはわからない）以来、foursquareは私がここにいる間、なくてはならないものだとわかった。 [...]

By: The Far Edge » Blog Archive » SXSW: Foursquare Scores Despite Its Flaws

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 22:00:22 +0000

By: SXSW: Foursquare Scores Despite Its Flaws | CHARGED's Digital Lifestyle at Work or Play

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 21:15:32 +0000

By: SXSW: Foursquare Scores Despite Its Flaws

SXSW: Foursquare Scores Despite Its Flaws — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 20:26:07 +0000

By: Blake Robinson

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 03:29:48 +0000

It is interesting to look back and see what you yourself had to say a couple of years ago. In the scope of two years, quite a few things have changed.

Obviously, we know that Twitter ended up dominating the category, but I’ve come to believe that dodgeball was something else entirely. The ambition was there in the beginning, but it was ahead of its time and only now are we getting around to what the service might have been had it not been absorbed by Google.

I learned to embrace Twitter a long time ago (@blake) and haven’t looked back. But at the moment, my eyes are on FourSquare (www.playfoursquare.com), their iPhone app went up moments ago and it is, as far as I envisioned it, very much like what Dodgeball could have been (especially considering the same people are behind it).

By: Molly Butters

Molly Butters — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 05:58:37 +0000

I was just rereading your 2007 post about twitter and dodgeball. Dodge is well… dead and we all know how twitter is doing. Any predictions for SXSW 2009?

By: Do You KNOW Clarence?™ » Silver-Lined Tweet Clouds

Do You KNOW Clarence?™ » Silver-Lined Tweet Clouds — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 23:47:40 +0000

[...] March, 2007, I was convinced by several people in my camp to get down with the mega-hyped service, [...]

By: tiffany b. brown

tiffany b. brown — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 20:02:23 +0000

Twitter meta: It does too have a point…

Blake Robinson of TechCrunch compares Twitter, Dodgeball and Facebook status. His take:
I think though that Twitter has a limited appeal. Sure it’s cool at an event like SXSW, but I can’t seeing it maintaining much functionality out of a conventio…

By: Rocky Agrawal

Rocky Agrawal — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 01:32:58 +0000

There’s a new GPS service for Twitter that allows you to post your location from select GPS-enabled Sprint phones. On the Twitter page (or in mobile alerts) your friends get your tweet along with a link to a map.

Brings the service closer to Dodgeball.

More here:
http://blog.agr...-about-twitter/

By: Alex Patriquin

Alex Patriquin — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 21:44:14 +0000

Facebook has a huge head start on either Twitter or Dodgeball, but only if their user base adopts SMS updates. We’ve seen how difficult it is for a social network to evolve with Friendster’s orphaned customization tools, Facebook’s controversial intro of the mini-feed and very recently the MySpace clamp down on 3rd party apps.

By: Erica

Erica — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 16:34:30 +0000

“because it was sold like nothing else” — I disagree. What good is Twitter if you don’t have any friends? I signed up because people I was hanging out with at SXSW were using it, and it turned out to be the perfect communication tool. I wouldn’t have given the pretty Twitter display a second thought if I had already decided it wasn’t useful.

“to me, the flexibility is an advantage” — Exactly.

In addition, the Dodgeball FOAF feature doesn’t work (not in Minneapolis, anyway). That, to me, is the one advantage Dodgeball might have over Twitter.

I know facebook is bigger than myspace, but I’m not a facebook user, so I can’t speak to it at all. What are the chances Twitter and facebook could merge?

By: Competition Auditing Dept.

Competition Auditing Dept. — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 15:45:50 +0000

It’s worth noting that http://www.UPOC.com has been operating in this space for years.

By: tiffany

tiffany — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 13:38:20 +0000

dodgeball is *SO* last year … no, seriously. most of the folks who were all about dodgeball at last year’s festival were all about twitter this year, even before the conference.

i think twitter has an edge over dodgeball precisely because it *isn’t* location dependent. you can text or tweet about whatever. if you want to give a location, add it to your text message: “ex: @ the hideout, 617 congress.” to me, the flexibility is an advantage.

what i’m hoping to see in twitter’s next iteration is a way to select those you want to receive mobile updates from versus those who should be web-only.

By: Nick

Nick — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 11:26:45 +0000

Dodgeball is US only at the moment where as Twitter can be used in other countries like the UK.
I do agree that twitter does have limited appeal at the moment…

By: Cherif

Cherif — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 10:42:39 +0000

I fully agree with your Twitter vs Facebook status comparision. As I mentionned in my post on the same topic (http://cherif.w...r-wont-make-it/), there is nothing stopping Facebook from adding an SMS gateway on top of their status feature. If they do, how will Twitter survive?

By: metonym

metonym — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 04:34:34 +0000

Blake:

“the features of similar services should be compared as that’s how we best judge which service is a better use of our time.”

I hear you – and I wish that this were true – it would make the tech world a much simpler place to navigate.

However – I’m pretty sure that Metcalfe’s Law dictates that the size of the (exposed) network is the primary determinant of value. I have no idea how many overall users Dodgeball has vs. Twitter, but I know which one provides me with more immediate potential points of contact.

(Hint: my twitter page is linked above. Feel free to stop by and friend me if you like. I would gladly provide a similar link to my dodgeball page if I knew how – or could even tell for sure if I had one…)