Checking in on Dodgeball
A while back, Wendy introduced me to the wonders of Dodgeball. I haven’t been going out all that much, and I don’t have a ton of dodgeball friends, so you couldn’t consider me a power user. But I did mosey on over to catch up with Wendy and Jenni when they checked in at Famous Dave’s at Calhoun Square. It works!
But I had a revelation the other day, as I was sitting at home “checking in” to Dodgeball while doing my freaking laundry.
Dodgeball is NOT Twitter.
(Twitter is a service where you can check in whenever with whatever it is you’re doing/thinking/etc. at the time. You can check in via phone, IM, or the web.)
I loathe the concept of Twitter. I already have a problem with being on the internet all the time. Encouraging me to be even more constantly connected and inflicting upon my friends the minutiae of my daily existence (and vice versa) is not a good thing.
So from now on I promise not to check in to Dodgeball unless I am actually out and about somewhere where you could conceivably join me if you happen to be in the vicinity. When I do finally go to Town Talk for the first time, or have my first Jucy Lucy at Matt’s Bar, I will let you know.
I don’t have any concept of how popular Dodgeball is here in the TC. I think it’s a really neat concept, though. Has anyone else actually met up with friends because of a Dodgeball message they got?
P.S. If you’re a Dodgeball user, be my friend!
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Dodgeball in Minneapolis now is used primarily only by two social circles of friends: Friends of Jenni Ripley and friends of Ed Kohler. There are a couple off-shoot groups but for the most part that’s it. Back when it came to Minneapolis, the user-base was basically few people that posted on MNspeak and HowWasTheShow. Most of them have either quit the service or stopped using it now. The service worked a bit different then too: It didn’t allow you to check into a venue if it didn’t exist, and the friend-of-a-friend feature was much, much more slick.
I loved it.
There’s a number of reasons why it hasn’t taken off but one of the reasons I think is about Minnesotans tend to operate in terms of meeting new people and networking. It also has to do with the fact the system was designed for a place like Manhattan, not the 494/694 loop. I remember when the first suburban venue was added: The TGI Friday’s in Roseville. I remember thinking, “who the hell is going to be using a mobile social networking tool in the suburbs?” Now it’s the norm out here, and right now the service doesn’t really function for any other reason than to notify your friends where you’re at.
But you can do that and a lot more with UPOC or Twitter, as you said.
As for meeting people on it, I’ve met about five people directly through Dodgeball in a way with friend-of-a-friend notifications… but in almost all of the cases I would have meet them in a different manner anyway. Minneapolis is too small of a town.
As for Twitter, I’m coming around on it. I used to think it was the highest level of worthlessness you can put in an RSS feed, but now I’m realizing that it’s one of the fastest and most simplest ways of self-publishing: it’s completely opt-in, relationships don’t have a bi-directional requirement, you can send and receive via SMS, AIM, WWW or a cute application, it’s totally voluntary when you use it and don’t use it and there’s almost no wrong way to use it either. If you feel you’re too connected, turn it off. If you need to let your friends know what you’re doing and want to hear what they’re doing, turn it back on. There’s no penalty and it isn’t a big deal… compared to Dodgeball if you de-friend someone or block them it is a bigger deal.
Aaron’s analysis is right on. I don’t think Minneapolis Dodgeball users use the service the way Dodgeball assumed it would be used. That’s fine as long as people have fun with it among their network of friends.
I’m still on dodgeball, but I’ve tired of the service and usually only receive updates through email. It’s annoying to me when I’m purposely spending a night at home not wanting to be doing anything and your phone going off constantly. I know there’s ways to shut it off but I wish there was better customization around shutting it off at certain sources but leaving it on at others (shutting it off on your phone shuts it off altogether, even if you get the emails).
I’ve always used it to primarily keep in touch with friends I already have. There’s other outlets to meet new people for me. Not enough people use it in the Twin Cities for it to be used in that manner, which I why I believe it’s evolved to what it is. The friends-of-friends feature has never worked correctly since I’ve used the service. Google has done a minimal amount of promotion of the product, and the lack of development or new features has not kept people around.
It’s an interesting tool that I continue to see used in social circles as Aaron has pointed out, but without more people on it, it’s not going to be used in the way they may have “intended” (though I use that term loosely because I believe these kinds of tools can be used in whatever ways people figure out to use them, and the creative uses of them are part of the fun of it. Whatever dodgeball’s (or google’s) intentions where, they can change over time - it’s a social networking tool with a fair amount of user input required to make the thing work after all…)
Aaron is a douchebag and we’re all glad he quit Dodgeball.
Um, okay “Elliot.” Whatever.
I can see both sides of the Dodgeball usage coin here. It has an intended use. The actual functionality allows you to use it in another way. I personally prefer the “intended” use and I will personally use it that way.
Folks know how to block people they don’t want to get messages from. Prune your friends list accordingly.
It sounds like there are some behind-the-scenes things that need some fixing. But it’s not totally broken. It just doesn’t have the critical mass it needs here. It might not ever get it.
as you know, i love dodgeball, and i use it constantly. i’m out nearly every night, and it’s been an invaluable resource for getting people together, in ways they might otherwise not.
the thing is, dodgeball is marketed as a social networking tool, and that’s precisely its weak point, since that aspect of the service doesn’t actually WORK. since i’ve been using it, friends-of-friends notifications have never been sent, and that’s pretty much the core of the ‘meet new people’ concept. that said, i’m not terribly interested in meeting new people via dodgeball itself anyway, since it’s entirely superficial. i tend to meet people in other ways, and convince them to join dodgeball to keep in touch. it’s been great in that regard.
dodgeball is an excellent communication tool. it allows me to very easily keep in touch with my friends, tell them where i am and where i’m going. i don’t have to text a bunch of people to tell them when and where to meet, nor do i have to call them to let them know i’ve arrived. i simply send a shout to 20 people with plans, or i check in and dodgeball tells them where i am (address and everything!), and when i arrived. it couldn’t be simpler.
my major annoyance with dodgeball is being accused of ‘not using it correctly’ when i check in, for example, from my car, from my boyfriend’s birthday, or from a joke that only some of us would understand. since those aren’t ‘real’ venues, dodgeball can’t locate you on a map, and therefore the networking portion of the concept is useless. i check in from legitimate venues 95% of the time, but those 5% entertainment-value-only checkins have been hella contentious amongst other users, including people i don’t even know. it’s kind of ridiculous, and makes dodgeball a lot less fun.
the thing is, when i check in from those places, my friends know exactly where i’m at. since they’re the only ones getting the dodgeballs, it doesn’t affect other users at all, nor does it undermine the integrity of dodgeball’s data, in the same way that people adding venues outside minneapolis doesn’t lessen the value of the service. if people are annoyed by someone’s usage of dodgeball, they don’t have to list them as a friend. it’s that simple.
the entire point of a user-administered service like this is that people can use it however it suits them best. and for how i use dodgeball, it’s outstanding. i recommend it to people all the time. it’s supposed to be fun more than anything else; all you have to do is look at the front page to see that. it’s meant for folks who go out a lot, who hang out in bars and at parties, who know a lot of people. one of their taglines is even “hook up”, for god’s sake. when you start imposing too many restrictions on proper usage, people are going to quit, because then it stops being an effective communications tool.
now that google owns dodgeball, i’m very hopeful that they start fixing some of the nonworking aspects of the service so that people who are interested in the social networking side of it decide to sign up. i’m also extremely interested to see how they intend to make money off it. my assumption is the demographic data; i have visions of them approaching town talk about advertising, armed with the information that we’ve checked in there 2 billion times in the past several months. i would absolutely love to hear google’s take on dodgeball’s value.
i simply send a shout to 20 people with plans, or i check in and dodgeball tells them where i am (address and everything!), and when i arrived. it couldn’t be simpler.
Then do that instead of forcing everyone that uses the service to see what should be private.
I’m “EX-DODGEBALL JUNKIE”. There, now we all know I was a coward poster.
At the risk of getting into further argument about how you “should” use Dodgeball, I think the distinction between checkin and shoutout is pretty clear. If you’re actually at a place, check in. If you’re just sending a message, shout out.
i guess we all have quite different opinions about ‘what should be private’, and appropriate use of the service. personally, i think it’s stupid to check in from work or school every day, because i see dodgeball as an invitation to people to join you. there’s a guy who checks in from work every day at 7:30, and i’m tempted to show up there someday. possibly with a bat, for checking in at 7:30am every day.
i think it’s stupid to check in from work or school every day
Which goes back to my “Dodgeball is not Twitter” point.
i see dodgeball as an invitation to people to join you
To give an example, if I get a message saying someone has just checked into, oh, someone’s vagina, I should come on over?
If I didn’t know any better I would assume that’s some sort of inside joke. I might be on someone’s friend list, but the definition of “dodgeball friend” is pretty loose. That message, even though it came from a friend, is pretty meaningless to me.
It’s safe to say that 1) you are not at anyone’s vagina or 2) if you are at someone’s vagina, you probably don’t want company. Which says to me it’s more appropriate for a shoutout than a checkin.
i have definitely never checked in from a vagina!! i think you’re confusing me with someone else we both know. it’s not my business to tell other people how to use dodgeball, just as i’m sick of hearing it from other users. that’s kind of the point here.
out of my 65 check-ins this month, only 2 of them aren’t genuine locations where i would expect company.
this has generated an immensely ridiculous amount of drama. it’s tiring.
I’m not trying to point any fingers, and I wasn’t necessarily implying that that came from you, Jenni, or anyone in particular. Just giving an example, since we were talking about how it is/can/should be used (or not).
It’s not clear from reading so far that anyone’s actually disagreeing.
Sometimes I do want company when checking into someone’s vagina.
I just wanted to clear that up.
simple solution to all of this - dodgeball should only show checkins on the front page for official venues. Then others who have commented about our “improper usage” and aren’t even our friends on the service don’t have to see any of it and everybody’s happier.
i agree with bill on that completely. that would pretty much solve everything!
A couple of updates:
1. Ed Kohler at The Deets points to a WSJ article on this whole matter.
2. I’ve completely changed my mind about Twitter.