Valleywag
wifiarmy
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acquisitions
6 startups that fell into Google's "black hole"
Digg users should be glad merger talks with Google have cooled, writes Slate's Farhad Manjoo. Had Digg fallen into Marissa Mayer's frosting-laced clutches, the site would have probably become another startup lost in what Manjoo calls "the Google Black Hole." It happened to FeedBurner this week. And the RSS ad network, was just the latest, following Jaiku, JotSpot, Dodgeball, GrandCentral, and Measure Map. Their tales of doom in the Googleplex, below.
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caption contest
Those Mormons might be on to something
Dodgeball founder and departed Googler Dennis Crowley celebrates his 32nd birthday by embracing his sister. Can you suggest a better headline? Do so in the comments. The best one will become the new headline. Yesterday's winner: "Yet another Valley Mashup" by jim_rock. (Photo from Dennis Crowley) -
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startups
Don't let Google get you, acquired founder says
In private moments, Dodgeball cofounder Dennis Crowley will tell any startup entrepreneur in New York asking: Avoid getting acquired by Google. "Sure, he's not upset about the $40 million and he's glad to be dating models," a source close to Crowley told me. "But he's not happy with Google." Not all Google-acquired founders are so bitter. Word is the FeedBurner guys love it at Google. But FeedBurner's best innovations are in advertising, not engineering. Some say the same goes for Google these days. (Photo by rosswerks) -
An addendum to last week's story about the robbery at Dodgeball founder Dennis Crowley's new workplace. Turns out there were actually two transvestite prostitutes who broke into the office, and he has the security camera footage to prove it. [Teen Drama]
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Someone broke into the offices of Area/Code, the startup where Dodgeball.com founder Dennis Crowley currently works (after bitterly leaving Google just three months ago). Taken were Crowley's laptop, a flatscreen monitor, and a digital camera. Left behind was the transvestite hooker still asleep on the office couch. [Teen Drama]
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yahoo
MyBlogLog to be upgraded and assimilated
MyBlogLog, the well-received web "widget" that displays images of recent visitors to your site, has re-emerged after being purchased by Yahoo back in January. David Dalka reports that Robyn Tippins, the community manager for MyBlogLog, promises a redesign and several new features. More » -
dodgeball
Aaaaand it's dead.
NICK DOUGLAS — [UPDATE: It's alive! Dodgeball is the Terry Schiavo of Web 2.0!] Sometimes a product just dies, horribly and suddenly, as if it were unlucky enough to be under a falling piano, stepping into an empty elevator shaft, getting smacked upside the head with a very large rock. It seems that's the fate of Dodgeball, the text-based find-your-friends-at-the-bar service that Google bought in 2005 and promptly abandoned. As of today, the front page is just a "502 server error" (a friend tells me that means the backend server, which actually handles page requests, is dead). More » -
google
Dodgeball founder quits Google; will Google kill the service?
NICK DOUGLAS — Dennis Crowley announced Sunday night that he's left Google. (His friend Andrew Krucoff scooped him.) The Dodgeball founder said that the company had never given his team the resources they needed to maintain and expand the location-texting service. "The whole experience was incredibly frustrating," he wrote on a group blog. Crowley posted the same story on Flickr, where he also commented that he and co-Dodgeballer Alex Rainert left "regardless" of their Google stock (or options) vesting schedule. "Regardless"? Ha! Google bought Dodgeball 23 months ago. One would assume his contract made him stay two years to collect a stock or options bonus, and Crowley can't be dumb enough to walk away one month before payday. Assume he and Rainert got their money's worth out of these dreary two years — and they sure deserved it, having to sit back and watch startups Twitter and Jaiku take over the group-messaging field. The next question is, will Google shutter Dodgeball? (Photo: Dennis Crowley) -
re-org
Dodgeball darkening?
Not since Biggie vs. Tupac have the East and West coasts been embroiled in as bloody a feud as Dodgeball versus Twitter. Since the former was acquired by Google, it's been the subject of occasionally surfacing rumors that it may be culled or consolidated inside a broader Google mobile offering. Twitter user cee-dub plants a rumor that Dodgeball.com may be about to "go dark"; no clue whether he means just the website or the service entire. Concur or dispute?
