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Future Of Waymarking


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Hi,

 

I understand TPTB's motivation in creating the Waymarking.com website, and support their thinking.

 

I am curious if Waymarking will eventually stand on it's own, or if gc.com will always pick up the tab?

 

I ask because I pay for a premium membership on gc.com, but have no interest in Waymarking.

 

That's fine and good, and I'm happy to ignore the site, except that I'm helping to pay for it.

 

I'm more than happy to pay for a premium membership to support the geocaching.com website and its associated activites and personnel.

 

I'm not happy about money that I earmarked to support geocaching through geocaching.com going to support another activity entirely (and it is another activity entirely, just ask TPTB, that's why LCs and Virts {except for grandfathered virts} are no longer a part of gc.com, and why it exists on an entirely different domain).

 

I'm not saying that Waymarking should be self sufficient today, but I would hope that it would be at some point in the future...a year, 2 years...

 

If it is a viable activity that people enjoy, as seems to be the case, then people who enjoy it should pay to support the site (or maybe McDonald's can pony up some cash for the free advertising).

 

There is a finite amount of money and server space and bandwidth and personnel that gc.com can afford, based on membership and ad revenue, and in my opinion, that money should be spent on geocaching, which is what the majority of us pay our premium membership in order to enjoy.

 

Just my $0.02

 

Jamie

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I thought I was going to get to use the newly repaired search feature to Markwell where this has been discussed before. My first search criteria kept timing out, and when I changed it the new search works so good that there were too many responses to find examples I was looking for. So I'll just make a couple of points here

 

1. Its not a geocaching.com premium membership, its a Groundspeak premium membership. And even it were a geocaching.com premium membership, it would be hard to get a privately held company like Groundspeak to set up accounting practices to isolate the geocaching business from the Waymarking business.

 

2. Geocaching will benefit from the Waymarking site.

2a. No longer will geocaching.com be cluttered with locationless and virtual caches (of course if you liked locationless or virtual caches this might not be an improvement).

 

2b. There is a strong possiblity that the geocaching.com data base will migrate over to Waymarking database. The data base for Waymarking was designed to be scalable with plans to eventually handle many more waymarks than there are geocaches. By using the same design for geocaches, there will be improvements in the performance of gc.com.

 

2c. Features that have been developed first for Waymarking (multiple origins, popularity filters, group ownership, etc.) will migrate to geocaching.

Edited by tozainamboku
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You gave me your 2 cents, now here's mine:

 

I think your just selfish and inconsiderate. First of all, like tozainamboku said, it is a Groundspeak subscription, not geocaching, and secondly, Groundspeak can do whatever they want with their money. If you don't want what you pay to go to Waymarking, then get rid of your subscription. :D

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My assumption is that Groundspeak is in possession of a comprehensive business plan that includes a long-term view of revenue opportunities, and an appropriate model for funding the development and exploitation of such opportunities.

 

Of course, I haven't seen the plan. I could be wrong. But I doubt very much that Groundspeak would have put this much effort and expense into their Waymarking product if they didn't view it as a significant opportunity.

 

It might be interesting to speculate, but in my opinion it is inappropriate to ask for information about Groundspeak's financial strategies, and wrong to expect them to alter such strategies based on my view (as an individual) of which of their product offerings are most appealing.

 

Not to say we shouldn't continue to offer constructive suggestions for improving their products - we should. And hopefully they'll endeavor to incorporate such suggestions into their products in order to keep their entire customer base (present and future) happy.

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If they:

(1) keep improving this site

(2) keep all that stuff over there

(3) keep membership dues at only $30 in spite of inflation

They will also keep receiving my membership payments

 

I think we get darn good value for our money, and many people do just fine playing for free.

All long as Jeremy keeps giving me more right here for the same money, I don't care if he funds 100 other crappy websites.

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I agree. Who cares where the money goes. If we get more and more stuff to play with and explore, and the price stays fixed at $30 per year, it's still a good deal. :blink:

 

If they:

(1) keep improving this site

(2) keep all that stuff over there

(3) keep membership dues at only $30 in spite of inflation

They will also keep receiving my membership payments

 

I think we get darn good value for our money, and many people do just fine playing for free.

All long as Jeremy keeps giving me more right here for the same money, I don't care if he funds 100 other crappy websites.

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I think we get darn good value for our money, and many people do just fine playing for free.

All long as Jeremy keeps giving me more right here for the same money, I don't care if he funds 100 other crappy websites.

  Very well said.

 

  As it now stands, we get premium membership to Geocaching and Waymarking for the same price we used to pay just for premium membership to Geocaching alone.  I don't see any rational way to see this as a bad deal.

 

  If he makes Waymarking a separate membership, are we going to have to pay $60/year ($30 for Geocaching and another $30 for Waymarking) for what we now get for $30/year?  Is that what NFA wants?

Edited by Bob Blaylock
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Come on guys... there is no need to be all sarcastic with NFA for bringing up his concerns.

 

While it is true that we actual purchase a Groundpseak Membership, and there is no chaging that... it would be far better if NFA could detail why he feels that he shouldn't fund the Waymarking portion of Groundspeak... and more importantly, how Waymarking could be more attractive to him for his Membership Fees.

 

I appreciate an metaphore as much as the next guy, but in my opinion they should only be used to provide additonal explanation for an actual answer that relates to the question posed.

 

Perhaps the idea of separating the two games could be approached differently.

 

Originally we had 5 physical, 5 locational, 2 event that could be logged = all for $30 USD

 

Now we have 5 physical and 2 event that can be logged on one site and the other 5 on another...

 

For this $30 USD... we have seen the potential for a huge increase in the locational style. Not to mention that there must be a big increase in server/programming/management/staff and other resourses.

 

I wish my cable/satellite provider would add a bunch more stuff and not increase my rates...

 

One could say that we are lucky Groundspeak didn't say "Geocaching is as improved as it is going to get. We are reducing the fees to $25 USD. All future improvements are going into Waymarking, which will be $15 per year for the time being. A combo pack can be purchased for $35. "

 

:) The Blue Quasar

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I had a response all nicely written up and I closed the browser.

 

Although the concepts are somewhat different the underlying codebase is the same. Better said, the underlying codebase will be the same, because Waymarking v.1 will also be running Geocaching.com v.3 at some point. Much of the things learned when creating Geocaching.com has been applied to Waymarking, and some of the problems with the current version of Geocaching.com is being fixed in Waymarking.com.

 

This doesn't mean that geocaching will be one waymark category among others, though at some time you may see them both located on the two different web sites. What it does mean is that the development of Waymarking directly relates, and shares the code on both sites. That means as one site improves, so will the other.

 

I'd also say that the small population who doesn't like their x dollars go to y concept, I'll make sure that your $30 goes to your favorite site, or at least towards pizza at the office. I still have dogbreathcanada's avatar taped to the side of the copier, for example. I could certainly paste yours to the coffee maker or microwave if you like.

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Wow!

 

I guess that my OP must have been pretty inflammatory...I'm sorry to have upset so many waymarkers, but also am glad to have supplied so many people with an opportunity to recycle that same sarcastic reply again and again and again and again.

 

I think I get a great deal with my Groundspeak membership and plan to subscribe forever, I like that innovations and improvements in wm.com will benefit gc.com, I think LCs are more appropriate in wm.com than in gc.com...

 

There were a couple of positive and informative responses (here and via email/pm) that made lots of sense, and I guess that I agree...just could have done without the rudeness, but that's life in the big city.

 

Jamie

Edited by NFA
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There were a couple of positive and informative responses (here and via email/pm) that made lots of sense, and I guess that I agree...just could have done without the rudeness, but that's life in the big city.

 

Jamie

 

I don't even know why I bother responding anymore. I did try to explain. Although you may have felt that my final paragraph was sarcastic, it wasn't. Some people do like to see that their $ went toward something specific.

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Jeremy Posted Today, 03:47 PM

 

I don't even know why I bother responding anymore. I did try to explain. Although you may have felt that my final paragraph was sarcastic, it wasn't. Some people do like to see that their $ went toward something specific.

 

Because you're passionate about your business, and those that invest in it?

 

:D The Blue Quasar

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Actually, I appreciated the information in Jeremy's post...as I said...and I very much appreciate his commitment to geocaching (and other GPS-related adventures)...his silly final paragraph didn't bother me a bit, it was far outweighed by the useful information in the rest of his post...I was referring to other posts in the thread, but am sorry to have caused him upset

 

jamie

Edited by NFA
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[snip]

his silly final paragraph didn't bother me a bit, it was far outweighed by the useful information in the rest of his post...

[snip]

but am sorry to have caused him upset

 

jamie

 

Give it up, man.

 

Jeremy,

My membership is now due and this thread has served as a reminder to send in the payment. I have to thank you guys for making my first year Geocaching great. I will proudly support all the ventures and if you can stretch my money further, put my membership fees towards some donuts and coffee for the staff.

 

Dave

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...I guess that my OP must have been pretty inflammatory...I'm sorry to have upset so many waymarkers, but also am glad to have supplied so many people with an opportunity to recycle that same sarcastic reply again and again and again and again.

...

Hmmph. I'm pretty sure that last time I accused Jeremy of buying a Bentley with my money. :)

Edited by sbell111
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I think your just selfish and inconsiderate. First of all, like tozainamboku said, it is a Groundspeak subscription, not geocaching, and secondly, Groundspeak can do whatever they want with their money. If you don't want what you pay to go to Waymarking, then get rid of your subscription. :)

 

The way I saw it:

 

This is one of the posts that NFA was complaining about, not Jeremy's.

 

I thought personal attacks in the forums were frowned upon.

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Hmmph. I'm pretty sure that last time I accused Jeremy of buying a Bentley with my money. :)

 

Well it was a used Bentley.

 

Thanks for the response NFA. I wasn't really upset. It also wouldn't be a Jeremy post with some kind of sarcastic paragraph thrown in there for effect. Though in this case it had a huge element of truth in it. Dogbreathcanada just loves his Xerox printer sticker.

Edited by Jeremy
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