Dodgeball Story Ends Ugly As A Cautionary Tale To Startups

In what can’t surprised many, the story of Dodgeball at Google ended this week in a way that doesn’t make Google look like the best place for startups.
Dodgeball makes a product that allows people to notify each other via their phones where they are and what they are doing at any time. In May 2005, Google acquired Dodgeball, and here’s part of what I said then:
Alex and Dennis of Dodgeball say in the their members that they are excited to now have the resources to make the service bigger. One can only wonder what Google’s plans are for the service.

Plans? We don’t need no stinkin’ plans! Alex and Dennis quit Google, as announced yesterday, telling the world on Flickr with this photo:

They say that “Google wasn’t supporting dodgeball the way we expected”, that it was “frustrating”, that they didn’t get engineering resources, and that they are […]

Original post by Nathan Weinberg