Google Buys Texting Service Dodgeball

Dodgeball, a site that helps friends and acquaintances connect through text messaging, posted a message to its Web site on Thursday saying that it was acquired by Google on Wednesday. Google confirmed the purchase, but declined to give further details. According to the notice, two people ran the company, and they could not take the site any further on their own.

"As a two-person team, Alex and I have taken Dodgeball about a far as we can alone. Since we finished grad school, we've been trying to figure out how to grow Dodgeball and make it a better service along the way," the founders wrote. "We talked to a lot of different angel investors and venture capitalists, but no one really 'got' what we were doing - that is until we met Google."