Commercialism

[Guest timp]

charge usually in excess of £1000, plus there is usually a charge for the amount of data downloaded from the server once it has reached a certain level.

 

There are many other costs as well, dependent upon what software is in use there will be licences to pay for. For example, this forum software alone costs $199.00 plus $199.00 per annum for support. Many people are not aware that to get listed with some search engines also costs money, Yahoo charge $299 just to review your website, inclusion is not guaranteed and the fee is non-refundable. Most of the other high profile search engines also charge.

 

Now for the effort bit. How many of you would like to spend the time to create a website like this for NOTHING ? How many would be willing to invest a couple of thousand pounds in this sport/passtime ?

 

Not many, I'm sure.

 

Internet users are accustomed to getting their information from the internet free and without charge other than the cost of getting connected. Most would object at having to pay a membership fee to Jeremy just to get that information and log their finds etc. So Jeremy has to at least cover his costs with Banner ads, and partnerships etc.

 

In short, this website needs some commercialism to survive. Jeremy has invested time and money, he owns the site and therefore has the right to decide what happens on it. It is clearly stated that "caches percieved to be of a commercial nature will not be approved". Apart from anything else, does anybody else have the right to gain publicity on the back of Jeremy's efforts. A possible outcome of letting commercial caches on this site is that once it starts, every business will be doing it, I will be next.

 

Now there's an idea, Jeremy, Why not have a "Commercial Caches" section where only commercial caches get listed, then you could charge for them. At $50 to $60 a piece it could help the cacheflow (pun intended).

 

Oops! Jeez, thats a long one, I'd better stop now.

 

Apologies if this long rant offends but it is just our personal feelings on the subject.

 

Happy caching

Tim & June (Winchester)

[Guest timp]

Jeremy,

 

I hope our post has not offended you (discussing costs etc).

 

If it has, My apologies.

 

Tim & June

[Guest kennamatic]

Picking up from the last post on the Lovelock Cache forum:

I agree that I can't see this intruding into our side of things. The "team-building" companies already use many of the allied sports, orienteering, hill walking, etc. and the use of GPS is just another strand. Anyway the Companies that run these things would not want "the great unwashed" running about finding their stuff which they no doubt charge an arm and leg for others to find. There is also the possibility that it might introduce some new people to the sport, although admittedly there is a good chance they would be marketing executives!

 

I think the situation just needs monitoring so that companies can't just start dropping stuff whenever and wherever for their own ends, and the idea of the commercial cache section would cover it.

 

Lastly, I'd just like to record my "Thanks Jeremy" for all the work, (and money), you must put into this.

[Guest Beth]

One upcoming event that may shape commercial caches is the phase II FCC E-911 legislation in the US. For those of you who aren't aware, it says that from the end of 2002 all digital mobile phones sold must be able to provide Automatic Location Identification (ALI). Although the legislation is only in the US, the chipsets with GPS capabilities will be used in phones the world over. Whilst I imagine most handsets won't be much competition for the GPS handsets we use, how difficult would it be for Motorola, Nokia, Ericsson or whoever to add in limited navigation functionality alongside the diary, calendar, e-mail, WAP functionality that phones already have.

 

There are already people talking about drive-by adverts where you will get directions to a location, or the traffic line will give you directions to avoid a traffic jam, using the GPS features to navigate.

 

With so many people with simple GPS units around, how long is it going to take for a big corporation to do some sort of treasure hunt? For example a big drinks company sends clues in SMS messages to people giving them clues to the location of a stash of free drinks, or exclusive memorabilia, or prizes. (The Planet of the Apes caches had tickets to the film premier for example) With care they could construct the puzzle to control the numbers of people. The competition being run through their own servers - consumers signing up online to get clues.

 

They will technically be hiding a geocache, but even if legally they are hijacking someone elses idea, what are the resources of a corporation like Pepsi, or Coca-Cola, compared to the resources of Grounded to mount a legal battle? Whilst Fox went through Grounded to set up their caches, in a couple of years the situation will be different. A big corporation could afford to totally ignore existing geocachers, as they will be aiming at a totally different group of people. Millions of people will have the means to find caches built into their phones, and through the phones, corporations will have the means to deliver clues to the caches.

 

Richard

[Guest timp]

nd I'm sure that they could correct my ramblings but ...

 

I'm not sure if I like the idea of transmitting the clues to the caches or not. This could be handy for doing multi caches where you could send an SMS as you find a stage and back would come the co-ordinates for the next. Hmmm!

 

Another use for this sort of technology is addresses, imagine sending mail with just the co-ordinates as an address.

 

The whole issue could be good news, or it could be a real nightmare.

 

But interesting, nonetheless.

 

Tim

[Guest LazyLeopard]

Provided they're not using geocaching.com, commercial treasure hunts are not, by themselves, a concern. If a company wants to run a treasure hunt (or whatever) for publicity purposes that's up to them.

 

If they want to use the geocaching.com system (and therefore tap into the geocaching user base and so on) then they need to do a deal with the owners of geocaching.com. I presume that is what Project Ape did.

 

There's a side-issue on the use of the term "geocaching". Is it a registered trademark? If so, whose? If not, it probably should be, and soon. There was in interesting fiasco when some gold-digger trademarked the word "linux" in connection with computer operating systems a couple of years back, and then tried to charge all the folks who'd been producing linux distributions for years...

 

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Purrs... LazyLeopard

[Guest timp]

quote:

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Originally posted by LazyLeopard:

There's a side-issue on the use of the term "geocaching". Is it a registered trademark? If so, whose? If not, it probably should be, and soon. There was in interesting fiasco when some gold-digger trademarked the word "linux" in connection with computer operating systems a couple of years back, and then tried to charge all the folks who'd been producing linux distributions for years...

 

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Hmmm! I can see where your'e coming from here. But then again, if the term "Geocaching" is used in the same way that say, "Football" is used, then can that name be trademarked ?

 

I guess that one could probably trademark the name at this stage but would it be a good idea ? How would the rest of the world refer to the sport ?

 

Time for some silly stuff from me, with my tongue firmly presssed in cheek :

 

Suppose that years ago someone registered the name "Football". Lets say it was registered by the "GEO Football Club" When the GEO Football Club have a match (amongst themselves) they would call it a "Football Match" but because they registered the title, other clubs have to call it something else so perhaps the "GPS Football Club" would call it "Ballfoot".

 

If the two played against each other it would be a "Football/Ballfoot" match.

 

Or supposing the "GPS Football Club" called it Cricket!

 

Oh, of course they would have to be called the "GPS Cricket Club"

 

I just hope that the rules for playing Football are not different from the rules for playing Cricket. (never did understand either of these games anyway).

 

Ok, nuff silly stuff from me ! Brains really gone this time. Oh! look at that green elephant over there! Call the men in the white coats ...

 

 

Tim

 

PS. LazyLeopard I'm not having a dig at you, you have a valid point. Just my brain rambling.

 

[This message has been edited by timp (edited 05 December 2001).]

[Guest Beth]

I agree with Tim, that the term 'Geocaching' on it's own really falls into the same category as 'Football'. However registering the Geocaching.com logo, and the various tag lines that are used around the site would seem sensible.

 

A couple of 'What if' questions that have crossed my mind in relation to this thread...

 

On the issue of commercial treasure hunts, what I was trying to get at with the mobile phone/big corporation comment is that with that kind of market, setting up a site that is largely a copy of what geocaching.com and the others do at the moment, is fairly straightforward. The resources of a large corporation could hire professional web designers to build the pages, have the resources to hide a relatively large number of caches quickly, and then be able to advertise the site to the GPS enabled mobile phone owning populace. If they opened the site to allow other people to hide caches, it would be complete. Joe Public would be much more likely to go for the big flashy site from a name they recognise, rather than a small site from a name they don't. If most of the people go, so will the advertisers who keep the existing sites afloat. It seems the kind of thing that the corporations like Pepsi would love for the publicity, and that the companies like Nokia, Ericsson and Motorola would see as a way to sell phones with more advanced features. It also seems at the moment like geocaching could be a fairly easy target.

 

The question maybe should be whether Geocaching as an activity could be patented?

 

Looking at that there are at least two issues surrounding that idea that spring to mind:

 

Firstly, the relationship between Geocaching and Letterboxing. Although the two activites have differences, I would venture that there are enough similarities to say that Geocaching isn't a new idea.

 

Secondly, if it is established that Geocaching is a new idea, distinct from letterboxing, that could be patented, who actually invented the game? Dave Ulmer, the guy who hid the first cache, could argue that he invented the idea, and after all the Project APE stuff a few months back, relations between him and geocaching.com could hardly be regarded as very healthy.

 

I guess it could all get rather messy....

 

Richard

 

P.S. One other, not totally related point - if the mobile phone networks are able to locate you for emergency services, or to tell you where the nearest McDonalds is, how secure is that information? How easy would it be for someone to hack into the phone networks systems and locate someone by their mobile phone?

[Guest LazyLeopard]

Trademarks are a complicated business, and I am not a lawyer. My understanding is that a word that has been in common usage for a while (like "football") cannot be trademarked in that context, but could be trademarked in a novel context. The experience of the Linux fiasco implies to me that "geocaching" (being a newly invented term) will not have been in use long enough to protect it from being trademarked in the context of this game. If it can be trademarked (and isn't already), then it would probably be better for it to be trademarked by the folks behind geocaching.com than by some gold-digger or mischief-maker...

 

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Purrs... LazyLeopard

[Guest JasonW]

I'm pretty certain that Jeremy (in the guise of Groundspeak, Inc.) has already registered Geocaching, the Groundspeak logo & other ancilliary terms such as Travel Bugs as trademarks - if you have a search through the "General" forums then it should show up.

[Guest JasonW]

Cancel searching for the post it's here in Jeremy's announcement concerning the trademark and The actual filed trademark registration

[Guest LazyLeopard]

quote:

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Cancel searching

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Thanks for that.

 

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Purrs... LazyLeopard

[Guest davehinns]

RE: P.S. One other, not totally related point - if the mobile phone networks are able to locate you for emergency services, or to tell you where the nearest McDonalds is, how secure is that information? How easy would it be for someone to hack into the phone networks systems and locate someone by their mobile phone?

 

Yup - it can already be done. Your phone locates you to a cell and from there other tracking measures can be taken to get to within 100m.

[Guest kennamatic]

quote:

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Originally posted by davehinns:

REYup - it can already be done. Your phone locates you to a cell and from there other tracking measures can be taken to get to within 100m.

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I think this technology has been used in court cases to prove the whereabouts or not of people at a time a crime was committed. I may be wrong though.

[Guest LazyLeopard]

quote:

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prove the whereabouts or not of people

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I'd think that the only thing it could be used to prove would be the wherabouts of a particular phone. That, of course, also assumes the phone hasn't been cloned (but I think the digital ones are a lot trickier to clone than the old analog ones.)

 

 

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Purrs... LazyLeopard