Navicache

January 3, 2004

Does anyone know what Navicache is and what is different about it and Geocaching. Their website is www.navicache.com. It came up on a related page search on my Google Toolbar. Some of the caches there are the same as the ones on www.geocaching.com.

1.2k · January 3, 2004

I checked out Navicache the other day, but there was no caches in Sweden (and here at Geocaching.com are there around 2000 caches in Sweden).

I'm not really sure who is behind Navicache, but you know, there is always spin-offs on everything that is popular.

3k · January 3, 2004

They are a competing caching site. The difference is that if you do a search there you might get a very small handful of caches within 100 miles of you. If you do that same search here, you will get hundreds of caches within 100 miles of you.

January 3, 2004

A cheap imitation!

2.1k · January 3, 2004

Does anyone know what Navicache is and what is different about it and Geocaching. Their website is www.navicache.com. It came up on a related page search on my Google Toolbar. Some of the caches there are the same as the ones on www.geocaching.com.

Navicache is an alternative to GC.com for listing your caches. They offer a number of features not available here for non-paying members, such as the ability to filter your search by difficulty of cache and terrain. They also have built-in features not available from this site for cache listing such as the icon bar to point out certain features of the cache (park entry fee, handicapped accessable, etc).

Unfortunately, they were second to the game and do not own a name space synonymous with "geocaching" and so they are often missed by most people, in terms of hiders and finders. There are some who post the same caches to both sites which provides two sources of users to find their hides.

Discussion on this board about that site will bring out the regular flag-wavers for GC.com and you'll hear about how badly NC.com operates and how it's useless to use. In reality, it is as useful as the information it has (no different from this site) and so until more people feel like using it, it will still play second fiddle in terms of cache count and finders' logs.

You may want to check it from time to time for caches that are not listed here. Most people upset with policy decisions from GC.com have moved their caches there since it would appear to be the current second-best alternative site.

There are a few other sites on the rise as well. One that has been mentioned here before and is still in a somewhat testing stage is opencaching.com ( www.opencaching.com ) and will allow anyone access to the data in its database for use in developing any third-party tool that you can think of.

38.2k · January 3, 2004

Its a competing website that I've found to be practically useless. It lists less 90 caches within 100 miles of my house, where geocaching.com lists over 2,000.

I've cross listed about a half dozen of my caches there. I've received a total of 8 "found it" logs and all were just dups of someone who had previously logged the cache on GC.COM.

January 3, 2004

Great job, ju66l3r! That must be the most fair and accurate assessment of Navicache that I've ever read.

For what it's worth... ditto.

6.4k · January 4, 2004

Great job, ju66l3r! That must be the most fair and accurate assessment of Navicache that I've ever read.

For what it's worth... ditto.

Well, to be totally fair, you have to add that many of us find the navicache site to be rather hard on the eyes, and "clunky" to try and use. You can't do as much to change the look of your cache page like you can here. They don't have the TB bug tracking that GC.com has, only a forum to post bug movements to. They do have some form of GPX file d/l's, but most of the great 3rd party tools that work with them (like Watcher and Spinner) don't work with them. They don't do benchmarks, and they have no locationless caches. The forums over there are about as sparse as the cache listings, with many regional forums only getting 1-2 posts a year. They list a few dozen caches in my area, all of which are also listed here. GC.com lists several thousand. When I weigh the pros and the cons, I stick with this place.

9.4k · January 4, 2004

I agree with Ju66l3r's assessment of Navicache.

The only caches "they" have in my state are virtuals. One is an hour away, the other is 6 or so hours away. The closest traditional cache is near the New Mexico/Colorado border west of Durango, CO.

Geocaching.com lists over 500 caches in New Mexico.

3.1k · January 4, 2004

They have few caches listed but they have grown. I have placed a couple of caches over there including one that wasn't approved of here. I have supported it as a backup to this site should something bad happen. It's about the size that GC.com was a few years back but with spartan features.

20.7k · January 4, 2004

Of course, GC.com had spartan features two years ago.

Is anyone else surprised that this thread exists?

9.4k · January 4, 2004

Of course, GC.com had spartan features two years ago.

Is anyone else surprised that this thread exists?

Navicache is not a threat to Geocaching.com. Having a 'backup site' helps to further the sport/game of geocaching in general. All geocaching sites can benefit from that.

1.3k · January 4, 2004

They don't do benchmarks, and they have no locationless caches.

They do have some locationless caches but I just haven't found an easy way to get a list of all the locationless caches on the Navicache site.

January 4, 2004

Great job, ju66l3r! That must be the most fair and accurate assessment of Navicache that I've ever read.

For what it's worth... ditto.

I agree too. I'm a Navicache fan.

6.4k · January 4, 2004

They don't do benchmarks, and they have no locationless caches.

They do have some locationless caches but I just haven't found an easy way to get a list of all the locationless caches on the Navicache site.

Just going by what the site admins there posted recently:

Yes Virtual caches are permitted. As for locationless caches, if you are referring to the type where one must find a specified object for example and then post a picture and its coordinates, no these are not being accepted at this time. If you are referring to something else (there appears to be many definitions for locationless), then let us know.

--------------

PC Medic

Team Navicache

So I guess even at a listing service as small as navicache, they have inconsistancies. Hmmm.

Edited January 4, 2004 by Mopar

January 4, 2004

I noticed a lot of people use both. Some GA cachers also have caches there and at looking at their boards I noticed familiar names. However if you look at there board stats you can see how small their site is.

January 4, 2004

the only navicaches I've ever found just happened to be geocaches as well and I didn't know they were double listed on navicache until way after. As far as navicache being a "backup" I really don't see this as any sort of a reason to merit the site. I hope I don't sound rude but I keep hearing the "backup" reason for its existance and really dont understand why one would think that. If the geocaching.com server went down right now 197 of 199 of my finds would not be "backed up" and with my nearest navicache unfound being over 50 miles away it doesn't look like I'll be navicaching anytime soon.

Edited January 4, 2004 by pnew

January 4, 2004

Is anyone else surprised that this thread exists?

yes :huh:

January 4, 2004

i dont think they meant a backup for ceocaching.com but a backup to geocaching.com if it were to start charging e-1 20 buxx a month to use the site or the powers that be made some unlivable rules we as a sport would have a backup to this site so we wouldnt have to give up the sport we love.no i personally dont use that site and i love this one...but....this site cant think its the only choice we have or they might start a monthly fee for us all...thank god for the freedom of choice in the great u.s.a and on the net no matter where you live.oh and yes i am a paying member of geocaching.com and i think its the best 3 buxx i spend a month.wtg the powers that be.and yes i am supprised this thread is here but on the other hand it just shows that this site is sooooo much better at this time that the compitition.

January 4, 2004

If a big time sponsor came a long and dumped a whole lot of money into Navicache

and the site offered everything this site has to offer, maybe a little more, then do you think it would compete with this site? It's all about the money, I guess.....

Duane

Upinyachit

1.7k · January 4, 2004

If a big time sponsor came a long and dumped a whole lot of money into Navicache
and the site offered everything this site has to offer, maybe a little more, then do you think it would compete with this site? It's all about the money, I guess.....

Duane

Upinyachit

I don't agree that it is "the money".

Back in 1999, Yahoo decided to get into the on-line auction business and compete with eBay.

Some vocal disgruntled SELLERS decided to abandon eBay and go to Yahoo, announcing it to the rest of the eBayers.

Yahoo auctions failed miserably because the BUYERS were all on eBay and few looked at Yahoo.

eBay was the first on-line auction site and because it built up a huge base of sellers and buyers, it will always reign supreme.

The story of Geocaching.com, a few vocal disgruntled users, and a small (nearly unknown) competing site is the very same situation as eBay and Yahoo. The only thing missing, is that eBay brings in millions more money to the site operators.

I suspect the outcome will be the same:

Geocaching.com was first, has a huge base of users and caches, and will probably be the premier geocaching site.

Just My Own Opinion, based on what I observe.

Edited January 4, 2004 by DustyJacket

January 4, 2004

I also greatly prefer Geocaching and do not believe that the fee is unfair. I just was wondering what Navicaching was all about.

January 4, 2004

I don't agree that it is "the money".

Exactly.

These are listing sites and if there are no caches listed in your area the site will not work for you.

January 4, 2004

...Most people upset with policy decisions from GC.com have moved their caches there...

Both of them?!

January 4, 2004

...Most people upset with policy decisions from GC.com have moved their caches there...

Both of them?!

You just made my morning! :huh:

Darkmoon

January 4, 2004

I think Navicache is the only reason this site is not 100% pay to play and if this site did go to 100% pay to play Navicahe would be the site of choice and become #1.

at least that's one man's opinion.....

2.6k · January 4, 2004

Both are listed on Buxely's site. Nice map navigation.

6.4k · January 4, 2004

I think Navicache is the only reason this site is not 100% pay to play and if this site did go to 100% pay to play Navicahe would be the site of choice and become #1.

at least that's one man's opinion.....

I would be willing to bet, if 90% of the current gc.com users suddenly moved over to navicache, that navicache would either go under or have to charge even MORE then $3 a month. Looking at their site, it's easy to see they can get away with an inexpensive hosting solution. The guys that run NC are nice people, but I seriously doubt they can afford to quit their day jobs, work for free, AND cough up the thousands of dollars a month a site this big costs to keep running. Look at all the maps and photos and cache pages hosted here. Almost a year ago Jeremy mentioned something like 30mil pageviews a month for the main site. It's proably grown since then. Can you imagine NC's server spitting out a million pages a day, PLUS all the email notifications AND all those huge pocket queries? Not to put them down, but even a ton of popups and banner ads isn't gonna cover those costs. Only reason the smaller sites stay 100% free is because they are small. The fact that THIS site stays afloat on just a small percentage of it's members coughing up less then 58 cents a week, is amazing.

Edited January 4, 2004 by Mopar

24.7k · January 4, 2004

GC.com is the premier geocaching site.

AT&T was the premier phone company.

Apple was the premier personal computer company.

Rome was the premier empire.

It takes more than being number 1 to remain number 1. It gives you a leg up on the competition and that's all it does.

2.5k · January 4, 2004

This town needs this measly one-horse institution if only to have some place where people can come without crawling to Potter.

January 4, 2004

Almost a year ago Jeremy mentioned something like 30mil pageviews a day for the main site.

OK, I like geocaching and all, and I'm sure most other folks here do too, but 30 million page views a day ain't coming from 100,000 registered users ...

Google sustained a daily average of 150 million per day for 2003 ... I simply can't believe this site generates one fifth the traffic of google ... it fails the sanity check. This needs a fact check.

January 4, 2004

Both are listed on Buxely's site. Nice map navigation.

Speaking of Buxley's, what is the connection between Navicache and that site?

When we hid caches we initially listed them on GC. Really the only choice as NC had only one Nebraska cache listed at the time. later, out of courtesy we listed the caches on NC as well. After that crossposting if you went to Buxley's and clicked on our cache it would link to NC and not GC as before.

To me that was not acceptable because of the listing presence in the midwest. I did a contact note on Buxley's site to inquire about this and got a reply back from one of the admins at NC. There was a bit of back and forth about the linkage and so I just knocked out all of our caches on NC. They eventually relinked them back to GC. That incident led me to believe that NC and Buxley's are connected, is that true?

6.4k · January 4, 2004

OK, I like geocaching and all, and I'm sure most other folks here do too, but 30 million page views a day ain't coming from 100,000 registered users ...

You are correct, it should have read 30 million pageviews per month, not day. I edited it.

I might want to add that I suspect many pageviews come from people not logged in. We've all seen logs at the cache site from people who don't log online. Some cache owners have mentioned up to 25% (not that I've seen anywhere near that number on my caches) of the finders don't log online. These foil hat wearing cachers still view the cache pages and maps and use bandwidth, as do the many land managers that keep tabs on caches listed in "their" parks.

Edited January 4, 2004 by Mopar

January 4, 2004

Well for my newbie perspective. Navicache is the first site I used regularly. The reason is that I didn't have a GPS receiver yet and was researching. Geocaching.com had their forums down for a period and Navicache didn't. The tone coming from MANY of the posters on the forums is that they moved over because of being fed up with TPTB. So it seems that the majority of the bigtime Navicachers are disgruntled GC.com users.

Since the forums are back up and I have my GPS, I have little use for Navicache. I do look on there from time to time to see if there's any increase in caches in my area. As it stands, there's 1 cache listed less than 25 miles from my house. Not enough to play the game. I do hope they stay around and get stronger strictly because competition is good for any industry. Without competition, the sport will stay exactly as it is now. No improvements at all.

Just my 2¢

F_M

6.5k · January 4, 2004

Yes, I am surprized by this thread.

One of the things that Navicache has this site doesn't is 'scoring' based on cache ratings. Finding higher rated caches mean more points than lower rated ones. I personally don't really care about that feature, but next time someone suggests that here, I think I may point them to Navicache to try it out. :huh:

3.8k · January 4, 2004

Is anyone else surprised that this thread exists?

yes

:huh: Tambien.

1.6k · January 4, 2004

No offense to anyone who uses navicache regulary, but most of their regular users are people who have been banned from this site for being too rowdy in the forums, and/or people who were ticked off they couldn't post virtuals.

Edited January 4, 2004 by TeamK-9

January 4, 2004

Ironically, Irish cited "moderation" of his own posts as a reason why he would no longer participate in geocaching discussions on the only geocaching mailing list at that time. Censorship of posts would soon become a controversial matter on Irish's own Web site. (http://geocaching.gpsgames.org/history/)

Perhaps this New Years's Resolution was to live in peace and harmony for the next year? Any chance we will see a sharable database come out if this as well?

-Rick

January 4, 2004

What is there to be dissapointed about in GC.com?

1.7k · January 4, 2004

What is there to be dissapointed about in GC.com?

I would hazard a guess that most (99% or more) of the registered Geocaching.com users don't have a problem with GC.COM - but they are not usually the vocal folks.

Also, I would assume that only a small percentage of GC.COM users actually post anything to the forums.

6.5k · January 5, 2004

What is there to be dissapointed about in GC.com?

who was disapointed??

January 5, 2004

What is there to be dissapointed about in GC.com?

I would hazard a guess that most (99% or more) of the registered Geocaching.com users don't have a problem with GC.COM - but they are not usually the vocal folks.

Also, I would assume that only a small percentage of GC.COM users actually post anything to the forums.

In any organized group, there will ALWAYS be someone that it upset about the way things are run or feel that they have been treated unfairly. Most just ignore the perceived "injustice" and go on with the rest of their lives. However, there is that vocal minority that feels it's their duty to right the injustice. Nevermind that everybody else has already forgotten about it and moved on.

January 7, 2004

NaviCache trusts it's patrons.

their cache submissions are avaliable instantly to all who look.

this is a plus considering that our current society has become too commercial or something to instantly accept caches.

:rolleyes:

38.2k · January 7, 2004

NaviCache trusts it's patrons.
their cache submissions are avaliable instantly to all who look.

Trusting people you don't know is akin to stupidity. GC.COM tried that in the beginning and stopped the practice for a number of good reasons.

24.7k · January 7, 2004

NaviCache trusts it's patrons.
their cache submissions are avaliable instantly to all who look.

this is a plus considering that our current society has become too commercial or something to instantly accept caches.

Last time I looked they had an approval process also. Until approved you could see that the cache was there but not see the page itself.

If for no other reason to eliminate the complete crap that people would submit just to clog up the system.

1.7k · January 7, 2004

NaviCache trusts it's patrons.
their cache submissions are avaliable instantly to all who look.

this is a plus considering that our current society has become too commercial or something to instantly accept caches.

I don't think so.

I've cross posted my caches over there and they still wait to be approved.

Navicache

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