Challenges.

Challenges have taken the Geocaching world by storm, whether that's in a good way or bad way is up to you. But they're here and let's take a look at what they offer us. First let me deal with some of the reasons people hate them.

•  They aren't challenging

Okay, this is Groundspeaks fault. If they had just named them Virtuals and then Photo Caches, Action Caches, etc. This wouldn't be an issue. Naming them Challenges obviously brings up images of "Geocaching Challenges that relate to getting a certain number and/or type of geocaches."

• I can't believe they count towards you finds! That really waters down actually caches.

Really? Oh and how are things like the E.T. power trail any better? This goes into the "they aren't challenging" argument as well. Not all geocaches are challenging, are they? What about people who already have Locationless challenges on their account, should those be taken away? How is one challenge worth less then finding 1000 micros in a row?

• This has nothing to do with caching, get rid of it!

First off it obviously does have something to do with caching as many are GPS based. Locationless caches were once a part of caching and now those have been returned via worldwide challenges. Challenges also replace virtuals which were (and still are) a part of geocaching.

• Well Locationless and Virtuals were archived for a reason!

Yup, Jeremy Irish actually discusses this in a Latitude 47 post that the reason Virtuals were retired is that it became too hard for reviewers to manage. This has been solved with a rating system. It has nothing to do with them not being fun.

• Geocaching is using a GPS to find a container, that's it.

Yes but my problem with that argument is that I could care less. If I can get equally fun games like Virtuals and Webcams and Locationless caches on Geocaching.com, then why the heck not?

• Kiss a Frog? Challenges are stupid

Okay someone could easily say the same thing about LPCs. But the great thing is that Groundspeak isn't afraid of getting rid of downvoted challenges and the fact that you can only post one per day and only from premium members. No virtual power trails here!

Let's get into the things I don't like now

1. The new log system, right now some idiot named Comatose is spamming the Kiss a Frog one with messages. Hey idiot, being an ass is still being an ass. Anyway, they look more akin to a forum which is not what people want, getting rid of the dates is a horrible idea too. My question is why didn't Groundspeak give this a trial run? Let Premium Members sign up for a beta and then get their feedback! 
2. Photo caches should be: "Take a photo with yourself or GPS in front of this object." Not: "Take a photo of you doing something near said object" THAT'S WHAT ACTION CACHES ARE! 
3. Searching isn't working properly. Fix it.
4. There currently isn't a minimum distance between challenges. This could lead to the Waymark problem where I'm logging a challenge for being on the Empire State Building, another one for  throwing a coin off of it and another one for throwing a paper airplane off of it. 

I think the worst part of this "fiasco" is that it really shows what spoiled brats geocachers are! You'd think there would be some measure of maturity for something that is (as of this second) only TWENTY FOUR HOURS OLD! But no, people are as I said above, spamming the logs, setting up facebook pages against it, disabling their actual geocaches, leaving for other geocaching websites! Are you kidding me? Honestly when PS3 players were having their credit cards stolen and online not working it wasn't this bad! It goes to what I've thought for a long time, many geocachers want to TELL YOU how you can play. To them I say "Don't let the door hit your whiny ass on the way out!".

"I've always loved a good challenge" - Lana Turner

Trying Waymarking

Today I decided to try out Waymarking again. Let me just give the problems.

• Categories. There are FAR too many. I'm just going to pick a few at random:

1. 7-Eleven Stores
2. Dedicated Benches
3. Butterfly Gardens
4. Wikipedia Entries
5. Traffic Parks

 By having sooooo many categories they completely water down what waymarks are worth. I probably went past 100 on my way home today. Think about FTF hounds and how many times caches are found. Would you be surprised to learn that some waymarks are never found at all? Or haven't been found in 6 years? And these are in communities, not mountain tops.

• Finding Waymarks.  Why isn't there a map function like Geocaching.com? Oh this is why...
• Only one Category per waymark. So for, lets say, the Empire State Building. There is probably 10 different waymarks, at least. One for wikipedia, one for New York Skyscrapers, one for New York Buildings, one for Famous Landmarks, one for 1930s architecture, etc. etc. (I'm just guessing but wouldn't be surprised at all).  I've already got 26 visits for only doing Niagara Falls, Hollywood and the Queen Mary.

• Waymarks. Can someone tell me what the difference between Beverly Hills, California and Beverly Hills, CA.? Because they're both waymarks.

•  Categories. Did I talk about this before? It needs repeating. Here are the sites own statistics: Over 1000 categories for over 300,000 waymarks. Geocaching meanwhile has over a million caches and only 15 categories. Most of which are barely used.

There has been chatter that waymarking and geocaching are going to be merged. That obviously cannot happen. There's just way to many categories now. The question then becomes: Can Waymarking be saved? The answer: Probably not. The first thing they'd have to do is make multi-categoried Waymarks but from my experiences in web development it seems like that would require a huge change of the websites mechanics. As it stands now the site has barely any use, ask yourself: Am I going to go and log all the 7-Eleven Waymarks?

Either the site is going to evolve and jump onto handheld devices or its going to die. That's the only way. Especially with Virtuals coming back to Geocaching as early as this Wednesday.

In depth comparison of Geocaching.com to Waymarking.com

The bounce rate is the number of times a person goes to one page and then doesn't come back.

Okay. This is not promising.

Oh god.

Idea for 11/11/11 Event

UPDATE: Not happening because of Remembrance Day I guess, maybe 12/12/12

Last year for 10/10/10 Groundspeak held a "event" where all cachers were encouraged to log at least one cache that day in an attempt to set a record for most caches. Cachers were promised a new Souvenir. It succeeded and thousands participated. For the Groundspeak this must have been exciting, however for your average cacher the results were only shown through given statistics and the Lost & Found video.

So what can Groundspeak do for 11/11/11 that can top 10/10/10? What about getting everyone to log the SAME cache in one day. My suggestion: A one day only Locationless Cache. "WHAT!?" I hear people crying out in agony. Locationless Cache is the only cache type that would work in this instance, any other cache requires a specific spot, severely limiting your numbers.

Locationless Caches were "Grandfathered" (retired so to speak) several years ago for good reason. They don't really require you to go to a location. But this is exactly why a Locationless Cache would work in this case. The fact that they're Grandfathered is incentive for the thousands of cachers who don't have access to them!

I think that in light of how well 10/10/10 did, it proves that the Geocaching community can get the word out. I think it would take a tiny bit of work on Groundspeaks for this to succeed. Let's make this happen!

Geocaching.com Updates INCOMING!

Recently announced by several sources are a number of large updates coming to geocaching.com (GC). The first is stats, which have been done outside of GC by GSAK, mycachingprofile.com and CacheStats. GC acquired mycachingprofile.com and will now be fully featured on profiles.

Also big news is the new Favourite system. This will likely be a Members only feature where depending on the number of caches you have, you get a certain number of Favourite Points. These points can be given to caches of your choice (not your own hopefully). I think this idea is far better than most DIY geocache rating systems on the internet.

Finally and biggest of all is this...



Yes on screen that is every geocache in EUROPE! Also notice the differences in icons, it make you wonder what other goodies they have tucked in there.

Theses updates are supposedly going to be implemented before Christmas! More details will be coming soon I'm sure.

OpenCaching.com... Competition or Plan B?

There's been a lot of buzz surrounding OpenCaching.com, and rightly so. GPSr manufacturing juggernaut Garmin opening it's own geocaching website is huge. Garmin directly competing against GeoCaching.com seems almost like an attack on a site that has practically built geocaching (and sold a lot of Garmin products in the process).

And that's not going to go without controversy. Delorme and Magellan have both backed Geocaching.com Of course no one expected otherwise. But the question that needs to be answered: Why is Garmin doing this at all?

Market share is a part of it. But the real issue: Stability. Let's face it, car navigation systems are on the way out. Cell phones are quickly adapting to GPS and people don't want to buy a GPSr if they don't need it. So who is going to buy Garmin GPSrs? Geocachers, that's who.

Geocaching is unique in that there's really only one source, that being geocaching.com. Garmin knows that relying solely on geocaching.com is dangerous. Terracaching.com is closing and that took a lot of people by surprise. Anything could happen, Groundspeak could be breaking some tax law you and I have never heard of and be shut down. It could be hacked or have a DOS attack, who knows? This is the Internet and things happen. So what would Garmin do then? What would YOU do then?

If this were really about promoting Garmin products, why are other GPSrs allowed? In fact I don't see any mention of Garmin GPSr products on the site, even the "GPS Devices". People can go on all day about competition and how it advances things. But really the win here is that not only Garmin, but the Geocaching community as a whole has a back-up to geocaching.com. Opencaching.com might just keep our community alive and, at least for now, sleep a little better at night.