Tuesday, December 14, 2004
TerraCaching - A complement or replacement of Geocaching.com?
TerraCaching.com
I found out about a new site for GPS treasure hunting this week and got myself a couple of sponsors so that I could join the group and figure out how it will play with the other geocaching related sites out there. Here are my initial findings:
This is not a replacement site for geocaching.com (et al) but is intended to be a high quality cache site. The site is designed for people into cache ratings, personal statistics, and quality caches not quantity. The community rates everything and if cache rating gets too low, it could be removed from the system. Your membership can also be removed under extreme conditions (i.e., your 2 sponsors stop sponsoring you). Your two sponsors will approve all your caches and you will approve caches of the people you sponsor. It is different but could be a good complement to the other sites if it really does hosts quality caches (both physical, mental). It is also expected that caches would be original to terracaching and would not be listed elsewhere and vise-versa.
It has a ways to go as far as user interface (site is 2 months old) but it could be a really good addition if it is truly meets it's mission of hosting more than "cookie cutter" caches.
It also looks like they are embracing the GPX format and user defined queries (i.e., pocket queries) are in developement. Also since this is SkyDivers site it looks like we already have the new cache alert tool integrated. You also can be informed of new users in your area (e.g., miles from your home coordinate).
A bunch of the more creative cache hiders have joined the group so we will see where all this leads...
I found out about a new site for GPS treasure hunting this week and got myself a couple of sponsors so that I could join the group and figure out how it will play with the other geocaching related sites out there. Here are my initial findings:
This is not a replacement site for geocaching.com (et al) but is intended to be a high quality cache site. The site is designed for people into cache ratings, personal statistics, and quality caches not quantity. The community rates everything and if cache rating gets too low, it could be removed from the system. Your membership can also be removed under extreme conditions (i.e., your 2 sponsors stop sponsoring you). Your two sponsors will approve all your caches and you will approve caches of the people you sponsor. It is different but could be a good complement to the other sites if it really does hosts quality caches (both physical, mental). It is also expected that caches would be original to terracaching and would not be listed elsewhere and vise-versa.
It has a ways to go as far as user interface (site is 2 months old) but it could be a really good addition if it is truly meets it's mission of hosting more than "cookie cutter" caches.
It also looks like they are embracing the GPX format and user defined queries (i.e., pocket queries) are in developement. Also since this is SkyDivers site it looks like we already have the new cache alert tool integrated. You also can be informed of new users in your area (e.g., miles from your home coordinate).
A bunch of the more creative cache hiders have joined the group so we will see where all this leads...
