Dodgeball and the spread of "Friendship"

Today I signed up for Dodgeball because Danyel, our corporate mentor, sent me an invitation. The service took no time to sign up for, I gave them my phone number and two seconds later received a text message with a confirmation code at which point I was able to declare him as a friend.

Immediately I began poking around for other people I know who use the service and figured D's "Friends' of Friends" list was a good place to start: not a one. Turns out, using my usually impeccable "internet search" capabilities I couldn't find a single friend who uses the service.

A couple tidbits that caught my eye:
- Only five people in Seattle have checked in within the past hour.
- The "top ten" Dodgeball users in Seattle (as measured by number of "check ins") average 3.5 check ins a day.
- The "top ten" Dodgeball users in Seattle are all men.

I emailed D again asking for starting points to research the spread of social networks. The root of the question is why people sign up for facebook when they already have MySpace but then shun Orkut. What would make people use CLUSTER when they already have Dodgeball? He pointed to the work of Danah Boyd and the suggested the following books:

• Diffusion of Innovation, by Everett Rogers
• Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, by Irving Goffman
• America Calling, by Claude Fisher

-S