Local blogger Julian Sanchez notes a recent NPR piece by reporter Ben Gilbert talking about Dodgeball. No, not the horrific elementary school gym game whose painful, awkward memories haunt you to this day; Dodgeball is more of a social service, often described as a Friendster for your cell phone.

This is how it works: A user sends a text message with his location to Dodgeball, and the server relays the message to the user's list of friends. It also notifies the user of any friends, or friends-of-friends, who are within a 10-block range. So if you're at the Black Cat, and someone on your list is a couple of blocks away at Bohemian Caverns, Dodgeball will let you know. An added stalkeresque bonus: if you have a camera phone, you can see other users' photos so you can decide whether or not an unknown friend-of-friend is cute enough to justify heading out to wherever they're at.

Popular in New York, DC Dodgeball is growing steadily. DCist has used it with some success; while it's a great way to let all of your friends know where you are on any given night, we haven't actually met new people through it. But maybe that's because we've been spending too much time behind our computers blogging ...

What about you, DCist readers? Is anyone signed up with Dodgeball? Have you found it useful, or have you stalked one of those friends-of-friends within a ten block radius? Inquiring minds want to know.