An interview with Benignsource of the Oh Beep! Geocaching Podcast

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In late December 2013, we promised an interview with the Oh Beep! Geocaching Podcast, and here it is! This Podcast, originating from The UK, made it's debut on November 9th, 2013. The latest episode on their website as of the date of this post is episode 12. And Ohbeep.com is a very well done website, there you will find links to follow the show on several social media outlets, as well as links for the many options to subscribe to the podcast. On with the interview!

Author Sara Murray talks with us about GeocacheBooks

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As can be seen on the banner above, Author Sara Murray writes children's fiction books set in real parks, and GPS coordinates will lead you to landmarks in the books. Like so many other interviewees on this blog, we first became aware of her when she made herself known in Geocaching social media circles. The blogger made an immediate note of this; future interview subject! We were originally going to wait for the interview until her first full length book came out, but upon seeing (on social media) that she attended the recent Geocaching Block Party as a vendor, we decided a concept and orgin interview was in order now, and another when the first full length book is released. Clicking the banner takes you to her website, and you can follow Geocachebooks on Twitter and Facebook. On with the interview. 

Bad Ideas, Bomb Scares, etc.

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It's no secret that many, many Geocaches have caused bomb scares in the U.S. and Canada since our game was invented in 2000. Elsewhere in the world too, of course, but we are a North American based blog, and the majority of these incidents occur in the United States. We doubt that anyone keeps statistics on the number of bomb squad incidents, but the Blogger, who has checked in and read the Geocaching.com forums several times a week for almost 10 years (where almost every incident is reported), would estimate the average to be between two and three per month.

A Google search of the phrase "Geocaching Bomb Scares" generally returns two Geocaching.com bookmark lists in the top results, both of which we at the blog have been aware of for several years. Bomb Scares and Other Fun Stuff, is the older of the two. However, this list has essentially been abandoned, and a quick scan of it tells you it hasn't had any new caches posted to it since 2007, although the adopted owner of the list is still an active Geocacher. The other top result, Bad Ideas, Bomb Scares, etc. is a very well maintained and regularly updated bookmark list, and is is the subject of this Blog post. The bookmark list owner, David Brierley (Geocaching.com Username: dbrierley), has graciously agreed to be interviewed by this Blog.

CacheFace.com launches CacheBlogger.com, a microblogging community for Geocachers

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Paul Suggitt AKA Pilot Suggs from CacheFace.com is at it again with a new website; CacheBlogger.com, which was launched at Midnight GMT on June 28th, 2013. Twitter, of course is  referred to as a microblogging website, and CacheBlogger.com very much resembles Twitter, in both look and feel. Why a microblogging platform dedicated to Geocachers? Says Paul: "CacheBlogger was developed to compliment cacheface.com in such that geocachers have a dedicated social network AND micro blogging platform at their disposal where they can shout about their geocaching adventures, make new friends and share the geocaching love, no matter where they are on the planet. Other platforms may have the volumes of people using them in general, however the idea behind CacheBlogger (and indeed cacheface.com) is that the platforms are developed for and dedicated to geocachers so its easy to find cachers, make new caching friends around the world and even share ideas and adventures with people you have never met, knowing they all share the same passion....geocaching."

TravelFleas - Along for the ride

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We here at the OCNA blog have been familiar with TravelFleas.com since shortly after their launch in July, 2012 (more on that later). Since this blog is only a few months old, we finally got around to conducting an interview with John from TravelFleas (both on the phone, and via email). And we are happy to announce that this Blog has a $10 TravelFleas.com gift certificate to give away! This contest will run for 14 days, including the day of this blog post. See the very bottom of this post to enter.

OCNA Blog: What are TravelFleas tags and how do you use them? 
John: TravelFleas tags are affordable small metal tags, personalized with your geocaching username that you either attach to a trackable to go "Along for the Ride" (they are not trackables themselves) or leave in a geocache as a signature item. TravelFleas tags are durable and will stand the test of time out in the elements of the geocaching world. The reason for the personalization is to let other geocachers know you are a part of the game.

Memorial Day (and GW) weekend in the USA

Memorial Day weekend is coming up in The USA, where OpenCaching North America is based. Since we have many readers (and even users) from outside the USA, our "Memorial Day" is celebrated the last Monday in May of each year, and is for honoring the Men and Women who died while in the service of our armed forces. Please, if you're an American take some time to remember and honor these Men and Women in some way of your own choosing during the long holiday weekend. You can read about the long history of our Memorial Day (once known as Decoration day) in this Wikipedia article.

There is no denying that Memorial Day weekend has, over the years, increasingly become known as the traditional start of the Summer vacation season here. And for the relatively new hobby of Geocaching, it has become one of two weekends designated for the holding of the American phenomenon known as GeoWoodstock, an annual Geocaching (Mega) event. It can also be held the nearest weekend to our July 4th Holiday, known as Independence day. The choice of which weekend is up to the organizers of the event. The Florida Geocaching Association, host of this years event, has chosen Memorial Day weekend, as have the majority of the hosting organizations over the years.

CacheFace.com: a dedicated social network for Geocachers

Above is a screen shot from a profile page on CacheFace.com (click to enlarge). It also happens to be the profile of Paul Suggitt (Pilot Suggs), the creator and owner of the website, who has graciously agreed to be interviewed by this blog! CacheFace is, as stated in the post title, a dedicated social network for Geocachers, launched in 2012. You can read an excellent overview of all it's features on the about-CacheFace page on their website. There are more screen shots of the site at the bottom of this blog post.

OCNA BLOG: (Every one's first question) Where are you from, how did you first hear of Geocaching, and when did you start?
PAUL: I am from the North East coast of the UK, a town called Hartlepool and I got into Caching late in 2010 after my best friend Ian White (Ian D+P) mentioned it. After my first cache find, i was hooked..I now have 1,477 cache finds under my belt and also have a number of caches out in my home town and the English Lake District.

OCNA BLOG: Can you describe all the major features of it? Is the “Face” an intentional play on Facebook?
PAUL: I developed CacheFace to give something back to the global geocaching community, a community I found from the geocaching meets that was very friendly and extremely passionate and I have given this back by way of using my programing skills to develop a global hangout where every cacher can connect and share, no matter where they are.

CacheFace is a dedicated social network for cachers to connect with each other. One thing for sure is it's not trying to compete with Facebook. The idea behind CacheFace is to bring the fragmented caching groups that exist on various social networks and forums around the world and allow all these cachers to come together in 1 place and hang out, make new friends, share tips and ideas, create global groups for their interests (travel bugs, caching containers, etc), something that wouldn't normally happen as people wouldn't normally venture out of their local group hangout. That's now changed.. CacheFace has created a new type of caching...social caching.

The name CacheFace is actually from a slogan I created from seeing some photo's of myself and my pals caching and we all had a "caching face," be it happy, tired, exhausted or silly, so when I was developing the site it felt appropriate to use CacheFace...i.e, connect with each other and show everyone your cache face.

ROVE: New bluetooth gadget for instant Geocaching & trail sharing

ROVE, shown above, was brought to our attention here at the Opencaching North America blog on April 4th, 2013 via a press release on PRweb.com that came through on a Google news alert for the word Geocaching. ROVE is a GPS accessory that instantly shares trail maps across social networks like Twitter and Facebook. ROVE pulls multiple geocaches from geocaching.com right to your GPS, anywhere there is cellular or WiFi service. Advanced functionality includes tracking distance, time, elevation and speed for accurate trail maps.

ROVE is manufactured in Atlantic Canada by Sparkyard, Inc., a Dartmouth, Nova Scotia based IT start up company. The company has launched a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo to raise money for increasing production (please note per the Indiegogo site that there is an initial short production run, and ROVE can be ordered right now). We at the OCNA blog contacted Janet Wilson, Visual Designer for Sparkyard through their website at www.gorove.com, who was nice enough to set up an interview for us with Jonathan Layes, the inventor of ROVE, and founder of Sparkyard, Inc.