New Maps - HORRID!

[+Copperkeys]

Actually I based that comment from 2 days ago.. Now that you mention it the ”live map” feature shows no caches found or undiscovered.. I just want the caches back on my live map!

[+Copperkeys]

Actually I based that comment from 2 days ago.. Currently the ”live map” feature shows no caches found or not found.. Please maker it simpler!

[XeenaWP]

I love being able to see only pocket query geos on a map, YES!

 

I dislike that the aerial view shows gray boxes randomly on the map unless you are zoomed so far out making it useless.

[JROFam]

 

I'd also like to say that I use the terrain view a lot as well when planning hikes into uncertain terrain and Google maps 3d relief shading has it down compared to any other services.

 

A great example: http://www.geocaching.com/map/default.aspx?ll=44.87359,-68.94345

There's a cache, black stream paddle, the is on a stream, can you determine this via Mapquest or the other "maps" available to us?

 

But if you only want to check the black stream paddle cache why in the world are you not using the map links on the cache page?

They are still available

e.g. google maps

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=N+44%C2%B0+51.765+W+068%C2%B0+57.060+%28GC315QE%29+

or bing

http://www.bing.com/maps/default.aspx?v=2&sp=point.44.86275_-68.951_GC315QE

or whatever you might wish.

 

All the maps that have been available before February 14 are still available.

 

 

The only loss happened with respect to the map which shows all the caches in an area. This is of course a problem for some when planning cache tours,

but it is not a problem for your example and so many other examples brought up in this thread.

 

Cezanne

In reply to JROgden during your planning you can read the cache pages. The cache page states quite clearly that a kayak or canoe is the preferred method of access.

I am the owner of that cache, which is why I used that as an _example_. When _I_ look for caches, I like to move to aerial or topo view and look for certain areas, such as mountainous or water based areas. I don't have the time to look at the description of every cache to find what I'm looking for.

 

I wonder if it's possible that we as a member can create our own API key and plug it into a setting in geocaching.com so that we can use google maps. I know that other sites do this. (Geosetter for example).

 

I have spent the last couple days updating my local town, talk about roads not being correct. It's actually alot of fun. I do not like the mapquest maps, but the OSM maps have the potentional to be amazing. As long as people continue to contribute they have massive potential.

 

As far as all these people complaining, these maps aren't going anywhere, geocaching isn't going anywhere. Learn to adapt, that is if you want to continue to cache. Imagine what it must have been like when caching first started, they didn't have these fancy-dancy maps anyways.

That's just what I have time for, updating maps- no thanks- I'll leave that up to Google. Your argument is pretty weak, just because technology didn't exist 10 years ago for this, doesn't mean we still should be fine with not having it now.

Edited February 20, 2012 by JROgden

[+gostkiewicz]

I am really angry because the local rivers, streams, ponds and lakes no longer show up on the new maps. It has made it really difficult to interpret the location of the caches.

[+Markwell]

Why is everyone blaming Groundspeak? Why not complain to Google?

[+davetherocketguy]

+1

[jholly]

Why is everyone blaming Groundspeak? Why not complain to Google?

Well, obviously if Groundspeak ponied up the 3 mill we would not be having these complaining discussions.

[+niraD]

Why is everyone blaming Groundspeak? Why not complain to Google?

Well, obviously if Groundspeak ponied up the 3 mill we would not be having these complaining discussions.

Sure. What's several thousand dollars a day between friends...

[knowschad]

Why is everyone blaming Groundspeak? Why not complain to Google?

 

If Google ever starts charging for web searches, I'm in serious trouble!

[+northernpenguin]

Why is everyone blaming Groundspeak? Why not complain to Google?

 

If Google ever starts charging for web searches, I'm in serious trouble!

 

That's the scary thing. We've all come to rely on Google Search, and their other products like it's some kind of utility. It isn't, it's a business and one day their services will disappear.

Prepare for the Googlepocalypse!

[+Chokecherry]

Why is everyone blaming Groundspeak? Why not complain to Google?

 

If Google ever starts charging for web searches, I'm in serious trouble!

 

I'm going to go out on a limb here and figure people are complaining to Groundspeak because this is yet another in a very long line of poorly implemented changes. I get that it had to happen but you can't tell me that people noticed on the 14th that oh my goodness we're going to get a bill and blammo we need to change it immediately. I would guess there was more warning there. More warning to the users, as has been stated about a million times with your changes, would have probably cushioned this blow a little bit. It's just the usually ultra bad PR that the company has that has resulted in this usual uprising with a change.

[+B+L]

Why is everyone blaming Groundspeak? Why not complain to Google?

Had Groundspeak put out a statement, in advance, that extremely disruptive change was coming, acknowledged that the transition away from Google maps was going to be painful, but they'd worked very hard to replace the maps with something that could eventually be better than what was previously available, apologize for the inconvenience, and ensure everyone that they were woking diligently to improve the situation, you know, act like they actually care about their customers, there would be less reason to be upset. Instead they just sprung this on everyone with a Happy Valentines like it was no big deal.

 

I personally think this transition could be a great move in the long term. In the short term, it's a PR disaster.

[+geocat_]

Why is everyone blaming Groundspeak? Why not complain to Google?

 

If Google ever starts charging for web searches, I'm in serious trouble!

 

I'm going to go out on a limb here and figure people are complaining to Groundspeak because this is yet another in a very long line of poorly implemented changes. I get that it had to happen but you can't tell me that people noticed on the 14th that oh my goodness we're going to get a bill and blammo we need to change it immediately. I would guess there was more warning there. More warning to the users, as has been stated about a million times with your changes, would have probably cushioned this blow a little bit. It's just the usually ultra bad PR that the company has that has resulted in this usual uprising with a change.

 

+1

[+releasethedogs]

Why is everyone blaming Groundspeak? Why not complain to Google?

Because we pay you for the service not google. duh.

For example pretend you like the tuna sandwich at your local diner. The tuna is very high quality and it is the best in town. Then one day you come in, pay the same price you always had and the tuna sandwich you loved so much is different -- it is still tuna but it is of much less quality.

 

Who would you complain to? The diner? The diner's tuna supplier?

Of course you would complain to the diner to do something about it. It is the diner's responsibility to keep offering a quality product (or reduce the price of the inferior product) or the customers will simply move on. Just as it is groundspeaks' responsibility to keep offering the same or better service.

 

For instance... when booking a hotel how many people pay extra for hotels if they have free wifi and free breakfast? Now pretend you are a regular in a hotel for a long time that offered these services, then one day they were gone (or worse quality). You would feel that that experience was cheapened compared to that last time even though these services were free. This is the same for geocaching.com, when you gave us lame maps it cheapens the website as a whole because we get an inferior product at the same cost.

 

What makes the bad nearly unforgivable is that Groundspeak seems content to ignore us instead of having an actual dialog with us. Then, when you do talk to us you blame it on suppler of the service you based your product on. It is not our job to complain to google, YOU should be doing that and/or finding a solution that does not suck. A solution that your customers want. While you are doing this, use your facebook and twitter accounts, that is what they are for.

Edited February 21, 2012 by releasethedogs

[knowschad]

Why is everyone blaming Groundspeak? Why not complain to Google?

Because we pay you for the service not google. duh.

For example pretend you like the tuna sandwich at your local diner. The tuna is very high quality and it is the best in town. Then one day you come in, pay the same price you always had and the tuna sandwich you loved so much is different -- it is still tuna but it is of much less quality.

 

Who would you complain to? The diner? The diner's tuna supplier?

Of course you would complain to the diner to do something about it. It is the diner's responsibility to keep offering a quality product (or reduce the price of the inferior product) or the customers will simply move on. Just as it is groundspeaks' responsibility to keep offering the same or better service.

 

For instance... when booking a hotel how many people pay extra for hotels if they have free wifi and free breakfast? Now pretend you are a regular in a hotel for a long time that offered these services, then one day they were gone (or worse quality). You would feel that that experience was cheapened compared to that last time even though these services were free. This is the same for geocaching.com, when you gave us lame maps it cheapens the website as a whole because we get an inferior product at the same cost.

 

What makes the bad nearly unforgivable is that Groundspeak seems content to ignore us instead of having an actual dialog with us. Then, when you do talk to us you blame it on suppler of the service you based your product on. It is not our job to complain to google, YOU should be doing that and/or finding a solution that does not suck. A solution that your customers want. While you are doing this, use your facebook and twitter accounts, that is what they are for.

 

Are you serious about that analogy?

 

The tuna fishermen suddenly decided to up the price of fresh tuna by a hundredfold. Your diner knew that you wouldn't or couldn't afford the corresponding increase in the price of their sandwich, so rather than increase the price, they substituted canned tuna. How is that unforgivable?

[+Sky King 36]

I try, when I can to be a voice of moderation and not just be a hater. I don't blame Google... Collecting all the data, negotiating all the licenses, and then building the infrastructure to serve up tiles in near real-time on a global scale... You are talking about hundreds of millions of dollars in investment. They give it almost all of it away for free, and only charge a fee when one of their users is using their maps to generate revenue. What more could we ask of Google?

 

I don't blame Groundspeak, per se. Some of you guys just rail on them because you think they are squandering the many millions of profit they are making. Again, they give 90% of their services away for free, they charge a tiny price to those of us that are premium members... Someone tossed around the 100,000 PM's number as having been validated last year... not sure if that's true, but if it is, it means they have 3 million in annual membership revenue before advertising and merchandise. What that means is that they have razor thin margins to work with. People here often accuse them of misappropriating their mountains of profit. They get a lot done for the revenue they have. And they give away almost everything for free, they generate revenue of a really tiny segment of their services--just like Google. It is totally unfair to give them the smack-down they sometimes get.

 

BUT

 

Where Groundspeak gets frustrating for all of us is that they seem to have a never-ending string of technical and marketing miscalculations. I have to say that the API was an absolute winner. They did correctly predict the future prominence of the PDA in caching and making the API a top priority was absolutely spot-on tactically. But beyond that... Remember rolling out J-Query-based web pages before realizing that it will break the tens of millions of existing logs? Remember the first feedback website? Last week was, as has just been said, just another in a long line of technical AND business miscalculations. So many of the website and app revisions have just left me, and so many others, scratching our heads.

 

I have a unique vantage point on all this... I have been the CEO of two venture-backed startups, and it was tough, grueling work, in many ways harder than my experiences as a soldier. I am currently a contract CIO and infrastructure consultant for large enterprises undergoing major IT transformation. So I truly DO get it, I get how hard it is. I have been in their shoes many times. If it was so easy, I wouldn't have had the consulting opportunities I've had over the last decade. People pay me to help them because it is just plain difficult.

 

Here's my theory, as someone whose been through it... The real downfall, the real turning point, to me, was the first feedback site a couple of years ago. (The GetSatisfaction one.) At the beginning of that, ALL of the lackeys, and especially Jeremy, were so actively involved. They were always present, lots of feedback, lots of discussion... But it all started to change. You could just see it, feel it, it was palpable when the real chafing started. For the first time, they really "opened the front door" and let the voice of the customer base come in... and it was too much. Too many ideas, too much criticism, too much everything. As an entrepreneur, you come to this crossroads... Either my original vision is going to be the locomotive--the driving force and the guiding principle that steers the business... Or, I will yield to my customers and let them steer my business, I will let go of the wheel and let the tide of the market wash through my lobby and take over my business. That crossroads is the single most difficult part of any entrepreneur's progression, and the teething pains it has caused for them, and for us, have become monumental. There's a reason why venture capital firms really struggle with whether to leave a founder in place and exploit his passion, or replace him/her with a dispassionate management team better prepared to evolve and grow the business. To me, our relationship with GS--all of us--seemed to change a few months into that first feedback site. Groundspeak started to pull away in a palpable, tangible way that you could see and feel... and our criticism--some unfair, some not--got harsher and harsher.

 

The abyss between "them" and "us" just seems like a monumental chasm today. We don't feel like they listen, they don't feel like we understand. It all makes me wish I could just spend a day in Seattle and offer some free consulting.

[+releasethedogs]

 

Are you serious about that analogy?

 

The tuna fishermen suddenly decided to up the price of fresh tuna by a hundredfold. Your diner knew that you wouldn't or couldn't afford the corresponding increase in the price of their sandwich, so rather than increase the price, they substituted canned tuna. How is that unforgivable?

What is nearly unforgivable is GS's total lack of PR. As users above noted they sprung this huge change on us with out warning and pretended like it was no big deal. Then they ignore the problem and their users instead of (at least pretending they are) caring and communicating with their users.

[+Roman!]

Why is everyone blaming Groundspeak? Why not complain to Google?

Because we pay you for the service not google. duh.

For example pretend you like the tuna sandwich at your local diner. The tuna is very high quality and it is the best in town. Then one day you come in, pay the same price you always had and the tuna sandwich you loved so much is different -- it is still tuna but it is of much less quality.

 

Who would you complain to? The diner? The diner's tuna supplier?

Of course you would complain to the diner to do something about it. It is the diner's responsibility to keep offering a quality product (or reduce the price of the inferior product) or the customers will simply move on. Just as it is groundspeaks' responsibility to keep offering the same or better service.

 

For instance... when booking a hotel how many people pay extra for hotels if they have free wifi and free breakfast? Now pretend you are a regular in a hotel for a long time that offered these services, then one day they were gone (or worse quality). You would feel that that experience was cheapened compared to that last time even though these services were free. This is the same for geocaching.com, when you gave us lame maps it cheapens the website as a whole because we get an inferior product at the same cost.

 

What makes the bad nearly unforgivable is that Groundspeak seems content to ignore us instead of having an actual dialog with us. Then, when you do talk to us you blame it on suppler of the service you based your product on. It is not our job to complain to google, YOU should be doing that and/or finding a solution that does not suck. A solution that your customers want. While you are doing this, use your facebook and twitter accounts, that is what they are for.

 

Are you serious about that analogy?

 

The tuna fishermen suddenly decided to up the price of fresh tuna by a hundredfold. Your diner knew that you wouldn't or couldn't afford the corresponding increase in the price of their sandwich, so rather than increase the price, they substituted canned tuna. How is that unforgivable?

 

Shoudn't I at least have to option to determine what I can't or won't afford. If my restaurant did that I'd leave for another never to return, unfortunately here I don't have that option.

[+releasethedogs]

What that means is that they have razor thin margins to work with.

They need to explore other aspects of geocaching that can raise revenue for them and stop wasting money for stuff people don't want.

People never wanted souvenirs. They commissioned tons of art that has not even gone live. Waste of money.

People did not want challenges, they wanted virtual caches back. Groundspeak goes ahead and makes challenges, wasting money in the progress.

 

Obviously there is a market for virtual caches. People pay money for weapons and swords in video games. Why not charge premium members 10.00 to list a virtual cache. 10 bucks is enough to discourage people from listing only things they care about while still making them a possibility. I know I have a few things Id pay to make a virtual cache.

 

Shoudn't I at least have to option to determine what I can't or won't afford. If my restaurant did that I'd leave for another never to return, unfortunately here I don't have that option.

 

sure you do.

[+Roman!]

What that means is that they have razor thin margins to work with.

They need to explore other aspects of geocaching that can raise revenue for them and stop wasting money for stuff people don't want.

People never wanted souvenirs. They commissioned tons of art that has not even gone live. Waste of money.

People did not want challenges, they wanted virtual caches back. Groundspeak goes ahead and makes challenges, wasting money in the progress.

 

Obviously there is a market for virtual caches. People pay money for weapons and swords in video games. Why not charge premium members 10.00 to list a virtual cache. 10 bucks is enough to discourage people from listing only things they care about while still making them a possibility. I know I have a few things Id pay to make a virtual cache.

 

Shoudn't I at least have to option to determine what I can't or won't afford. If my restaurant did that I'd leave for another never to return, unfortunately here I don't have that option.

 

sure you do.

 

What? Open caching? Or qutting? Those are not options. It's like a diet or starvation.

Edited February 21, 2012 by Roman!

[knowschad]

Are you serious about that analogy?

 

The tuna fishermen suddenly decided to up the price of fresh tuna by a hundredfold. Your diner knew that you wouldn't or couldn't afford the corresponding increase in the price of their sandwich, so rather than increase the price, they substituted canned tuna. How is that unforgivable?

What is nearly unforgivable is GS's total lack of PR. As users above noted they sprung this huge change on us with out warning and pretended like it was no big deal. Then they ignore the problem and their users instead of (at least pretending they are) caring and communicating with their users.

 

True about the PR, and I was going to add that to Sky King 36's excellent post... the history of bad PR goes way back beyond the first Feedback site. But I suspect a good bit of that is, as Sky King hinted at, is that they feel that they can't win no matter what they do, so they do what the want. Personally, I'd like to think there is a happy medium between what all of us are hollering for, but I have no idea how that can be achieved.

 

That said, the common threads that I have seen, release after release after release are, 1) Why didn't you tell us this was coming? (your PR part), and 2) Why didn't you let us test it first? 3) "We never asked for this!" and 4) "Why didn't we get what we DID ask for?"

[+Sky King 36]

This isn't cancer research, there's nothing of any real consequence here. Before we start using words like "unforgivable" let's reflect for a moment that this whole thing is about finding little pieces of plastic and metal in the woods or under lamp skirts. No one's going to die from a misstep here, so in that context, all is forgivable. On a scale of 1 to 10, I reserve angst levels above 4 for those times when I am parachuting out of a helicopter, at night, with tracers coming up at me. This map debacle has taken me all the way from 1.0 to 1.5 on my meter-o-angst.

[+Chokecherry]

 

Are you serious about that analogy?

 

The tuna fishermen suddenly decided to up the price of fresh tuna by a hundredfold. Your diner knew that you wouldn't or couldn't afford the corresponding increase in the price of their sandwich, so rather than increase the price, they substituted canned tuna. How is that unforgivable?

What is nearly unforgivable is GS's total lack of PR. As users above noted they sprung this huge change on us with out warning and pretended like it was no big deal. Then they ignore the problem and their users instead of (at least pretending they are) caring and communicating with their users.

 

The PR in general is a monumental problem. And I wouldn't limit the communication issues to just after the fact after the problems arise but even before the fact. A lot of this particular round of complaining (just like with challenges) could have been smoothed over if heaven forbid they actually, I don't know, talk about what is actually going on. They are inherently very very bad at communication if not openly antagonistic (it's my play box, deal with it or leave attitude).

 

I get that it comes down to the bottom line and the only thing that actually matters is the almighty dollar. That's fine. I would more much more open to continue spending my almighty dollar here if they actually made some attempts to improve their communication with people about things, better utilize and communicate on their feed back area and just all in all improve on their PR side of things. Take some of that $3million not being spent working on maps and put some money into education on that side of things.

[+Roman!]

This isn't cancer research, there's nothing of any real consequence here. Before we start using words like "unforgivable" let's reflect for a moment that this whole thing is about finding little pieces of plastic and metal in the woods or under lamp skirts. No one's going to die from a misstep here, so in that context, all is forgivable. On a scale of 1 to 10, I reserve angst levels above 4 for those times when I am parachuting out of a helicopter, at night, with tracers coming up at me. This map debacle has taken me all the way from 1.0 to 1.5 on my meter-o-angst.

 

So GS, in their infinite wisdom caused someone who can cope with tracer fire after jumping out of a helicopter have their angst level almost double.

 

Not a good move.

[+Ambrosia]

One of the reasons for poor communication beforehand has been that many years ago they were more transparent and it only bit them in the end. There were things that they considered doing, and then changed their minds, or there were things that they said were coming but then took a lot longer to implement. The negativity that they received from the geocaching public was enough that they stopped telling us things in advance. Newer cachers may not see this, but some of us oldies can probably remember how bad it could get.

[+B+L]

One of the reasons for poor communication beforehand has been that many years ago they were more transparent and it only bit them in the end. There were things that they considered doing, and then changed their minds, or there were things that they said were coming but then took a lot longer to implement. The negativity that they received from the geocaching public was enough that they stopped telling us things in advance. Newer cachers may not see this, but some of us oldies can probably remember how bad it could get.

I'm sorry, but none of that is a valid excuse for the lack of communication both before and after a change of this magnitude. Groundspeak is not a dysfunctional family gathering, it is a company with very poor corporate communications. They don't even have to do anything about it because they know that this is all sound and fury signifying nothing. No one is going anywhere.

[+Glenn]

Why is everyone blaming Groundspeak? Why not complain to Google?

Because we pay you for the service not google. duh.

For example pretend you like the tuna sandwich at your local diner. The tuna is very high quality and it is the best in town. Then one day you come in, pay the same price you always had and the tuna sandwich you loved so much is different -- it is still tuna but it is of much less quality.

 

Who would you complain to? The diner? The diner's tuna supplier?

Of course you would complain to the diner to do something about it. It is the diner's responsibility to keep offering a quality product (or reduce the price of the inferior product) or the customers will simply move on. Just as it is groundspeaks' responsibility to keep offering the same or better service.

 

For instance... when booking a hotel how many people pay extra for hotels if they have free wifi and free breakfast? Now pretend you are a regular in a hotel for a long time that offered these services, then one day they were gone (or worse quality). You would feel that that experience was cheapened compared to that last time even though these services were free. This is the same for geocaching.com, when you gave us lame maps it cheapens the website as a whole because we get an inferior product at the same cost.

 

What makes the bad nearly unforgivable is that Groundspeak seems content to ignore us instead of having an actual dialog with us. Then, when you do talk to us you blame it on suppler of the service you based your product on. It is not our job to complain to google, YOU should be doing that and/or finding a solution that does not suck. A solution that your customers want. While you are doing this, use your facebook and twitter accounts, that is what they are for.

 

Are you serious about that analogy?

 

The tuna fishermen suddenly decided to up the price of fresh tuna by a hundredfold. Your diner knew that you wouldn't or couldn't afford the corresponding increase in the price of their sandwich, so rather than increase the price, they substituted canned tuna. How is that unforgivable?

 

Shoudn't I at least have to option to determine what I can't or won't afford. If my restaurant did that I'd leave for another never to return, unfortunately here I don't have that option.

 

I don't like this analogy. Your elevating the maps to same standing as a main course. Maps are not required to find caches. Therefore maps are more like a side dish. So if the price of cabbage went thru the roof. Causing a serving a coleslaw to cost more than a new car. I'd get a side of mashed potatoes instead.

[+Roman!]

Why is everyone blaming Groundspeak? Why not complain to Google?

Because we pay you for the service not google. duh.

For example pretend you like the tuna sandwich at your local diner. The tuna is very high quality and it is the best in town. Then one day you come in, pay the same price you always had and the tuna sandwich you loved so much is different -- it is still tuna but it is of much less quality.

 

Who would you complain to? The diner? The diner's tuna supplier?

Of course you would complain to the diner to do something about it. It is the diner's responsibility to keep offering a quality product (or reduce the price of the inferior product) or the customers will simply move on. Just as it is groundspeaks' responsibility to keep offering the same or better service.

 

For instance... when booking a hotel how many people pay extra for hotels if they have free wifi and free breakfast? Now pretend you are a regular in a hotel for a long time that offered these services, then one day they were gone (or worse quality). You would feel that that experience was cheapened compared to that last time even though these services were free. This is the same for geocaching.com, when you gave us lame maps it cheapens the website as a whole because we get an inferior product at the same cost.

 

What makes the bad nearly unforgivable is that Groundspeak seems content to ignore us instead of having an actual dialog with us. Then, when you do talk to us you blame it on suppler of the service you based your product on. It is not our job to complain to google, YOU should be doing that and/or finding a solution that does not suck. A solution that your customers want. While you are doing this, use your facebook and twitter accounts, that is what they are for.

 

Are you serious about that analogy?

 

The tuna fishermen suddenly decided to up the price of fresh tuna by a hundredfold. Your diner knew that you wouldn't or couldn't afford the corresponding increase in the price of their sandwich, so rather than increase the price, they substituted canned tuna. How is that unforgivable?

 

Shoudn't I at least have to option to determine what I can't or won't afford. If my restaurant did that I'd leave for another never to return, unfortunately here I don't have that option.

 

I don't like this analogy. Your elevating the maps to same standing as a main course. Maps are not required to find caches. Therefore maps are more like a side dish. So if the price of cabbage went thru the roof. Causing a serving a coleslaw to cost more than a new car. I'd get a side of mashed potatoes instead.

 

Problem with your analogy, we don't know the price increase, I doubt it's up to a new car though, double, triple, I'd be ok to pay but they never told us how much.

Edited February 21, 2012 by Roman!

[+Ambrosia]

One of the reasons for poor communication beforehand has been that many years ago they were more transparent and it only bit them in the end. There were things that they considered doing, and then changed their minds, or there were things that they said were coming but then took a lot longer to implement. The negativity that they received from the geocaching public was enough that they stopped telling us things in advance. Newer cachers may not see this, but some of us oldies can probably remember how bad it could get.

I'm sorry, but none of that is a valid excuse for the lack of communication both before and after a change of this magnitude. Groundspeak is not a dysfunctional family gathering, it is a company with very poor corporate communications. They don't even have to do anything about it because they know that this is all sound and fury signifying nothing. No one is going anywhere.

I'm not saying that it's an excuse. I'm just saying that it's an explanation. And probably just a partial one, anyway. I'm sure there are other reasons, as well. But I do remember how it could get, and I can partially see where Groundspeak is coming from. But it's like a previous poster said, Groundspeak's durned if they do, and durned if they don't.

[+B+L]

But it's like a previous poster said, Groundspeak's durned if they do, and durned if they don't.

Not really. We are.

 

Groundspeak's habit of performing self-inflicted turnbuckle smashes goes way back. It's all there in the forum archives for anyone to read, although recent changes have made it more of a search-fu project than it used to be. This will sound harsher than intended, but the fish rots from the head.

Edited February 21, 2012 by B+L

[jholly]

Why is everyone blaming Groundspeak? Why not complain to Google?

Because we pay you for the service not google. duh.

For example pretend you like the tuna sandwich at your local diner. The tuna is very high quality and it is the best in town. Then one day you come in, pay the same price you always had and the tuna sandwich you loved so much is different -- it is still tuna but it is of much less quality.

 

Who would you complain to? The diner? The diner's tuna supplier?

Of course you would complain to the diner to do something about it. It is the diner's responsibility to keep offering a quality product (or reduce the price of the inferior product) or the customers will simply move on. Just as it is groundspeaks' responsibility to keep offering the same or better service.

 

For instance... when booking a hotel how many people pay extra for hotels if they have free wifi and free breakfast? Now pretend you are a regular in a hotel for a long time that offered these services, then one day they were gone (or worse quality). You would feel that that experience was cheapened compared to that last time even though these services were free. This is the same for geocaching.com, when you gave us lame maps it cheapens the website as a whole because we get an inferior product at the same cost.

 

What makes the bad nearly unforgivable is that Groundspeak seems content to ignore us instead of having an actual dialog with us. Then, when you do talk to us you blame it on suppler of the service you based your product on. It is not our job to complain to google, YOU should be doing that and/or finding a solution that does not suck. A solution that your customers want. While you are doing this, use your facebook and twitter accounts, that is what they are for.

 

Are you serious about that analogy?

 

The tuna fishermen suddenly decided to up the price of fresh tuna by a hundredfold. Your diner knew that you wouldn't or couldn't afford the corresponding increase in the price of their sandwich, so rather than increase the price, they substituted canned tuna. How is that unforgivable?

 

Shoudn't I at least have to option to determine what I can't or won't afford. If my restaurant did that I'd leave for another never to return, unfortunately here I don't have that option.

 

I don't like this analogy. Your elevating the maps to same standing as a main course. Maps are not required to find caches. Therefore maps are more like a side dish. So if the price of cabbage went thru the roof. Causing a serving a coleslaw to cost more than a new car. I'd get a side of mashed potatoes instead.

 

Problem with your analogy, we don't know the price increase, I doubt it's up to a new car though, double, triple, I'd be ok to pay but they never told us how much.

Actually we do know the price increase. Nate mentioned that the site generates something like 2,000,000 map views a day. Google's price is first 25,000 are free then $4 per 1,000 after that. You can do the math. So then the problem is how many of the number of players listed on the front page are really unique even semi active players? And will those semi active players stick around if there is a price increase? I bet it is a whole bunch fewer than the number quoted on the front page. I bet that even Groundspeak doesn't know that answer. So how do you set a price when you really can't afford the freight bill and you really don't know how many paying customers you will really have? This is the stuff marketing masters thesises are about.

[+Ambrosia]

But it's like a previous poster said, Groundspeak's durned if they do, and durned if they don't.

Not really. We are.

 

Groundspeak's habit of performing self-inflicted turnbuckle smashes goes way back. It's all there in the forum archives for anyone to read, although recent changes have made it more of a search-fu project than it used to be. This will sound harsher than intended, but the fish rots from the head.

I'm sorry that you have such a negative view of Groundspeak. I don't think that they're perfect, nobody is. But I've been very happy overall with how they have created and managed gc.com.

[+Roman!]

Why is everyone blaming Groundspeak? Why not complain to Google?

Because we pay you for the service not google. duh.

For example pretend you like the tuna sandwich at your local diner. The tuna is very high quality and it is the best in town. Then one day you come in, pay the same price you always had and the tuna sandwich you loved so much is different -- it is still tuna but it is of much less quality.

 

Who would you complain to? The diner? The diner's tuna supplier?

Of course you would complain to the diner to do something about it. It is the diner's responsibility to keep offering a quality product (or reduce the price of the inferior product) or the customers will simply move on. Just as it is groundspeaks' responsibility to keep offering the same or better service.

 

For instance... when booking a hotel how many people pay extra for hotels if they have free wifi and free breakfast? Now pretend you are a regular in a hotel for a long time that offered these services, then one day they were gone (or worse quality). You would feel that that experience was cheapened compared to that last time even though these services were free. This is the same for geocaching.com, when you gave us lame maps it cheapens the website as a whole because we get an inferior product at the same cost.

 

What makes the bad nearly unforgivable is that Groundspeak seems content to ignore us instead of having an actual dialog with us. Then, when you do talk to us you blame it on suppler of the service you based your product on. It is not our job to complain to google, YOU should be doing that and/or finding a solution that does not suck. A solution that your customers want. While you are doing this, use your facebook and twitter accounts, that is what they are for.

 

Are you serious about that analogy?

 

The tuna fishermen suddenly decided to up the price of fresh tuna by a hundredfold. Your diner knew that you wouldn't or couldn't afford the corresponding increase in the price of their sandwich, so rather than increase the price, they substituted canned tuna. How is that unforgivable?

 

Shoudn't I at least have to option to determine what I can't or won't afford. If my restaurant did that I'd leave for another never to return, unfortunately here I don't have that option.

 

I don't like this analogy. Your elevating the maps to same standing as a main course. Maps are not required to find caches. Therefore maps are more like a side dish. So if the price of cabbage went thru the roof. Causing a serving a coleslaw to cost more than a new car. I'd get a side of mashed potatoes instead.

 

Problem with your analogy, we don't know the price increase, I doubt it's up to a new car though, double, triple, I'd be ok to pay but they never told us how much.

Actually we do know the price increase. Nate mentioned that the site generates something like 2,000,000 map views a day. Google's price is first 25,000 are free then $4 per 1,000 after that. You can do the math. So then the problem is how many of the number of players listed on the front page are really unique even semi active players? And will those semi active players stick around if there is a price increase? I bet it is a whole bunch fewer than the number quoted on the front page. I bet that even Groundspeak doesn't know that answer. So how do you set a price when you really can't afford the freight bill and you really don't know how many paying customers you will really have? This is the stuff marketing masters thesises are about.

 

firstly I'm sure they could negotiate a better rate, secondly their views would go down as only those that paid would get to use them, they could offer a map pack to cover costs, maybe even make a bit more.

 

I have download the plug-in so I have the features back, just feel GS could have handled it better.

[+B+L]

I'm sorry that you have such a negative view of Groundspeak. I don't think that they're perfect, nobody is. But I've been very happy overall with how they have created and managed gc.com.

Actually, I don't have such a negative view of Groundspeak. I actually think they do plenty of things right, but communications is not one of them. And you won't find me cheerleading for them, because that's their job.

[jholly]

Why is everyone blaming Groundspeak? Why not complain to Google?

Because we pay you for the service not google. duh.

For example pretend you like the tuna sandwich at your local diner. The tuna is very high quality and it is the best in town. Then one day you come in, pay the same price you always had and the tuna sandwich you loved so much is different -- it is still tuna but it is of much less quality.

 

Who would you complain to? The diner? The diner's tuna supplier?

Of course you would complain to the diner to do something about it. It is the diner's responsibility to keep offering a quality product (or reduce the price of the inferior product) or the customers will simply move on. Just as it is groundspeaks' responsibility to keep offering the same or better service.

 

For instance... when booking a hotel how many people pay extra for hotels if they have free wifi and free breakfast? Now pretend you are a regular in a hotel for a long time that offered these services, then one day they were gone (or worse quality). You would feel that that experience was cheapened compared to that last time even though these services were free. This is the same for geocaching.com, when you gave us lame maps it cheapens the website as a whole because we get an inferior product at the same cost.

 

What makes the bad nearly unforgivable is that Groundspeak seems content to ignore us instead of having an actual dialog with us. Then, when you do talk to us you blame it on suppler of the service you based your product on. It is not our job to complain to google, YOU should be doing that and/or finding a solution that does not suck. A solution that your customers want. While you are doing this, use your facebook and twitter accounts, that is what they are for.

 

Are you serious about that analogy?

 

The tuna fishermen suddenly decided to up the price of fresh tuna by a hundredfold. Your diner knew that you wouldn't or couldn't afford the corresponding increase in the price of their sandwich, so rather than increase the price, they substituted canned tuna. How is that unforgivable?

 

Shoudn't I at least have to option to determine what I can't or won't afford. If my restaurant did that I'd leave for another never to return, unfortunately here I don't have that option.

 

I don't like this analogy. Your elevating the maps to same standing as a main course. Maps are not required to find caches. Therefore maps are more like a side dish. So if the price of cabbage went thru the roof. Causing a serving a coleslaw to cost more than a new car. I'd get a side of mashed potatoes instead.

 

Problem with your analogy, we don't know the price increase, I doubt it's up to a new car though, double, triple, I'd be ok to pay but they never told us how much.

Actually we do know the price increase. Nate mentioned that the site generates something like 2,000,000 map views a day. Google's price is first 25,000 are free then $4 per 1,000 after that. You can do the math. So then the problem is how many of the number of players listed on the front page are really unique even semi active players? And will those semi active players stick around if there is a price increase? I bet it is a whole bunch fewer than the number quoted on the front page. I bet that even Groundspeak doesn't know that answer. So how do you set a price when you really can't afford the freight bill and you really don't know how many paying customers you will really have? This is the stuff marketing masters thesises are about.

 

firstly I'm sure they could negotiate a better rate, secondly their views would go down as only those that paid would get to use them, they could offer a map pack to cover costs, maybe even make a bit more.

 

I have download the plug-in so I have the features back, just feel GS could have handled it better.

Groundspeak is not the only site moving away from Google. It sounds like Google does not negotiate. Why should they? Seems like they have the only good maps around. And for what some have said, a $3,000,000 increase in map costs is probably more that a few dollars per member. And do you know start charging the basic members that you have not charged for the last 11 years? Could they have handled it better? Probably, but I not sure how.

[+Ambrosia]

I'm sorry that you have such a negative view of Groundspeak. I don't think that they're perfect, nobody is. But I've been very happy overall with how they have created and managed gc.com.

Actually, I don't have such a negative view of Groundspeak. I actually think they do plenty of things right, but communications is not one of them. And you won't find me cheerleading for them, because that's their job.

It's their job to communicate? I wasn't aware of that rule. Interesting.

[+aurght]

Yeah, they aren't real nice. I just did my first downloads and cache hunt since the change.

I was still able to get what I wanted. If I cared about navigation, my GPS maps were fine.

Mountain out of molehill you guys!!

[+B+L]

firstly I'm sure they could negotiate a better rate, secondly their views would go down as only those that paid would get to use them, they could offer a map pack to cover costs, maybe even make a bit more.

i've read elsewhere that Google was willing to negotiate the price down to $2 CPM in at least one instance, but that is still probably an order of magnitude higher than what many sites are willing or able to pay.

[+B+L]

It's their job to communicate? I wasn't aware of that rule. Interesting.

Yes, it's generally called PR.

 

 

[+Roman!]

firstly I'm sure they could negotiate a better rate, secondly their views would go down as only those that paid would get to use them, they could offer a map pack to cover costs, maybe even make a bit more.

i've read elsewhere that Google was willing to negotiate the price down to $2 CPM in at least one instance, but that is still probably an order of magnitude higher than what many sites are willing or able to pay.

 

So if I view 50 maps/day and I think that's lots that's under 20k/year at $2/k that's $40.00/year. I'd pay it, I'm sure others would too and lots wouldn't but why not give me the option?

[jholly]

firstly I'm sure they could negotiate a better rate, secondly their views would go down as only those that paid would get to use them, they could offer a map pack to cover costs, maybe even make a bit more.

i've read elsewhere that Google was willing to negotiate the price down to $2 CPM in at least one instance, but that is still probably an order of magnitude higher than what many sites are willing or able to pay.

 

So if I view 50 maps/day and I think that's lots that's under 20k/year at $2/k that's $40.00/year. I'd pay it, I'm sure others would too and lots wouldn't but why not give me the option?

As you already pointed out you have a cheaper option

[+Roman!]

firstly I'm sure they could negotiate a better rate, secondly their views would go down as only those that paid would get to use them, they could offer a map pack to cover costs, maybe even make a bit more.

i've read elsewhere that Google was willing to negotiate the price down to $2 CPM in at least one instance, but that is still probably an order of magnitude higher than what many sites are willing or able to pay.

 

So if I view 50 maps/day and I think that's lots that's under 20k/year at $2/k that's $40.00/year. I'd pay it, I'm sure others would too and lots wouldn't but why not give me the option?

As you already pointed out you have a cheaper option

 

But I have to use Firefox, not my first choice of browser, I'd still rather pay $40-50/year to get the maps back the way they were.

Edited February 21, 2012 by Roman!

[+Sky King 36]

I think you guys are being too optimistic about what the cost increase would be if GS were to start offering a tiered mapping plan. Let's assume that GS creates a new "Premium Plus" membership level that includes Google maps. The problem is that GS loses much of their negotiating power. Sure, at 2,000,000 map tiles per day, you may have the negotiating power to push Google down to $2. But... Don't forget, all the basic members... they won't be using Google tiles. All the Premium members that opt out... they won't be using Google tiles. The lion's share of the volume will be gone and you'll be negotiating with less volume.

 

So to use your numbers, it may be an 80 USD hike, not 40 USD.

 

And think about it... given a choice between paying 80 USD a year more (110 USD/year total) or simply using Firefox, Chrome, or Opera as your browser so you can use the free workaround... How many people would pay the $80? Not enough to justify the development costs of a "premium plus" membership model. And what happens when 3 weeks from now, someone has ported the greasemonkey script into an ie7pro script, and all 5 major browsers have a free workaround? Nothing in product development is as simple as "a few guys said they'll buy it, so we should go ahead."

Edited February 21, 2012 by Sky King 36

[+AussieCacheHunter]

firstly I'm sure they could negotiate a better rate, secondly their views would go down as only those that paid would get to use them, they could offer a map pack to cover costs, maybe even make a bit more.

i've read elsewhere that Google was willing to negotiate the price down to $2 CPM in at least one instance, but that is still probably an order of magnitude higher than what many sites are willing or able to pay.

 

Not sure how legit this quote is http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=284377&view=findpost&p=4878411 but it looks like it could have saved a fair bit of money. Of course google may have their own unique version of use of the API. The forum links in there don't work anymore so we can't see where they go, so if we could find where http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=284335 went it'd be good.

[+pppingme]

Why is everyone blaming Groundspeak? Why not complain to Google?

Because Groundspeak has made no effort to actually negotiate a contract with google, intead only quoting some $4/per 1000 hits that they found on a page that was geared toward low volume users and crying about the millions it would cost them because they have no idea what the real cost would be.

[jholly]

Why is everyone blaming Groundspeak? Why not complain to Google?

Because Groundspeak has made no effort to actually negotiate a contract with google, intead only quoting some $4/per 1000 hits that they found on a page that was geared toward low volume users and crying about the millions it would cost them because they have no idea what the real cost would be.

Do we know for a fact that Groundspeak has made no effort to negotiate with Google? I don't recall seeing any lackey saying they blew off Google and went with the maps they have now. Perhaps you could cite that post? Even if they were able to negotiate a contract for half the price it would still be substantial. Seems they have a handle on how many map views a day they generate. You could only expect it to go up, and you can probably expect Google to raise the fees when they see real money.

[+pppingme]

The forum links in there don't work anymore so we can't see where they go, so if we could find where http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=284335 went it'd be good.

Wow, interesting thread to hide/delete.

[+pppingme]

Why is everyone blaming Groundspeak? Why not complain to Google?

Because Groundspeak has made no effort to actually negotiate a contract with google, intead only quoting some $4/per 1000 hits that they found on a page that was geared toward low volume users and crying about the millions it would cost them because they have no idea what the real cost would be.

Do we know for a fact that Groundspeak has made no effort to negotiate with Google? I don't recall seeing any lackey saying they blew off Google and went with the maps they have now. Perhaps you could cite that post? Even if they were able to negotiate a contract for half the price it would still be substantial. Seems they have a handle on how many map views a day they generate. You could only expect it to go up, and you can probably expect Google to raise the fees when they see real money.

Because the minimum contract google will enter into starts at 100k hits/day, everything that any "lackey" has stated included the 25k plus $4 per 1000 extra hits, a rate the ONLY applies to low volume customers who occastionally bump the 25k limit and don't want to enter into any kind of contract.

[jholly]

Why is everyone blaming Groundspeak? Why not complain to Google?

Because Groundspeak has made no effort to actually negotiate a contract with google, intead only quoting some $4/per 1000 hits that they found on a page that was geared toward low volume users and crying about the millions it would cost them because they have no idea what the real cost would be.

Do we know for a fact that Groundspeak has made no effort to negotiate with Google? I don't recall seeing any lackey saying they blew off Google and went with the maps they have now. Perhaps you could cite that post? Even if they were able to negotiate a contract for half the price it would still be substantial. Seems they have a handle on how many map views a day they generate. You could only expect it to go up, and you can probably expect Google to raise the fees when they see real money.

Because the minimum contract google will enter into starts at 100k hits/day, everything that any "lackey" has stated included the 25k plus $4 per 1000 extra hits, a rate the ONLY applies to low volume customers who occastionally bump the 25k limit and don't want to enter into any kind of contract.

Well the real reason for the move away from google maps to the OSM maps has been revealed in the update announcement thread. It is to kill C:geo. Has to be, Waymarking is still using google maps.