YM Exclusive: Dodgeball Founders Leave Google

Getting Out of Dodge. Dennis Crowley, founder of the mobile social networking service Dodgeball, and Alex Rainert resigned from their positions at Google, which acquired the service in May 2005, effective Friday April 13th. When reached for comment, Crowley said, "It's really disappointing to leave Dodgeball behind, but I'm looking forward to getting back to work on other projects."

Searching for clues? It's no secret to people who cover the space that Google put almost zero resources into building the service after acquisition - a familiar fate of other Google properties - which allowed similar location-focused mobile companies like Jaiku and Loopt to innovate around them. Ironically, Twitter, a simplified blogging service fully funded by the money Evan Williams made from the sale of Blogger to Google, was able to become the latest darling of the social tech blogosphere while Google stifled Dodgeball's in-house development.

No rest for the texted. While plans for Dodgeball have not been publicly announced (no one who's been following Google would be surprised if/when? they kill it), Crowley begins work Monday at Area/Code, maker of big urban games like PacManhattan, with Kevin Slavin and Frank Lantz. All three are instructors at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program where Crowley and Rainert were '04 graduates. Rainert has taken a position with IconNicholson, a digital agency.

Crowley plans to make an announcement through his Flickr page...a Yahoo! company. UPDATE: Here it is, Google "frustration."