Many local readers of this blog know that I'm a geocacher, albeit a methodical (read: slow) one. Still, I try to pick up a few caches when I can, so when I registered for the recent Where 2.0 conference in Burlingame, CA, I setup a few pocket queries on the Geocaching.com site around the areas of my visit. Five days away from home, and I only managed 4 finds: one in downtown Sonoma and a few near the hotel. That said, I was pleased to see that Jeremy Irish, head of Groundspeak, the folks behind the Geocaching.com (and Waymarking.com, and Wherigo.com) sites was speaking at the conference.
Since some of you may ask: no, Jeremy didn't speak about geocaching per se, though he did chide the crowd of geofolk who don't cache ("If you're not a geocacher..... SHAME ON YOU.") Instead, he spoke about the lessons that Groundspeak has learned in working with the geocaching community, especially as applied to other GPS and geospatial games. I thought it particularly telling that he cautioned against games that relied on a very accurate sense of location and that he described both positive and negative aspects of incenting players into the mania that plagues many players.
After his talk, I stopped by and identified myself as a geocacher and thanked him for his talk. I'd brought along a couple of old geocoins, intending to place them in a nearly travel bug motel. Instead, I offered him one of my coins as a gift. Imagine my surprise when he said, "Oh.... wait a minute", fumbled into his bag, and produced a similar gift of his own: a "Groundspeak Lackeys: 2007" coin that they had minted for employees, with iconic caricatures of all the staff.
Several of the other attendees and presenters were focused on geogames. Some were interested in them as educational devices, while others seemed to be promoting them as fun (and hopefully lucrative) ways of enjoying space. Either way, I think the explosion in location-aware devices will continue to stoke the creative fires of many. Here's hoping for their continued success.
3 comments:
Cool, trading coins with Irish, you've arrived! A whole conference of attentive listeners and he didn't go for converts?
Geocaching With Team Hick@Heart
Nah. I appreciated Jeremy's comments re: geogaming, though he had more to offer the social/gaming folks in the crowd than the neogeographers. While there may be a cult of geocaching, it certainly isn't my cult; I respect that Jeremy has taken an idea and successfully marketed it, but at the end of the day don't forget that Groundspeak is just that: a company attempting to maximize revenue. I certainly hope they continue to not be evil (ala Google).
As for converts: no. In fact, near as I can tell, only 4 attendees cached, one of whom went out with me to pick up 3 caches, and another was caching for his very first time.
Even more interesting to me is that fact that Jeremy didn't mention the Waymarking site at all, despite crossover between that user base and a couple of other crowdsourcing data collection efforts. Part of that may simply be due to the format, since they speakers only had 15 minutes to talk.
Glad to see you had fun in California!
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