Groundspeak introduces “Souvenirs”
For anyone who may not have noticed, during GSP’s latest update to their site, they implemented a new feature called “Souvenirs”. If you logged a cache on 10-10-10 then you probably have your very first official souvenir. What are they? Well, there hasn’t been much official talk on the main pages of geocaching.com, but after doing some digging, I’ve learned that souvenirs are going to be Groundspeak’s own version of achievements/badges. Here’s the scoop…
The official word from Groundspeak is:
What is a souvenir?
A souvenir is a piece of art, with some associated text, that users receive for caching, and can display on their profiles as well as in the iPhone and Android apps.
How do you get one?
1. One way is to do a search from either the iPhone or Android app while within the zone of the souvenir, during the time that it is active.
2. Another is by logging a cache within the zone of the souvenir, during the time that it is active.
3. It should be noted that some souvenirs, such as the 10/10/10 souvenir, do not have a physical zone and can therefore only be acquired via logging a cache.
Will any log type get me a souvenir?
No. Only a log of Found It, Attended (for an event), or Picture Taken (for web cam cache) will result in the awarding of a souvenir.
Are souvenirs only available for a limited time?
Some are. For example, souvenirs for Mega Events can only be acquired during the duration of that Mega Event. Other souvenirs can be acquired indefinitely after they are released.
What if I have already been to a location that has a souvenir associated with it?
We’re working on a solution for being able to retroactively award people souvenirs for going to places and logging caches that now have souvenirs with no end date associated with them.
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Jeremy Irish also commented on souvenirs in a post on the geocaching.com forums and he has a post on his personal blog about it which really details what they are trying to do. You can check out more of the souvenirs available on this profile for the user Moun10Bike.
Different souvenirs will exist for each of the 50 states, Canadian provinces, other countries, etc. There will also be some for specific achievements (such as 10-10-10, The Ape Cache, etc). I also read that these could be used to help inspire cachers to go find certain types of caches (say a 100 Earthcache souvenir, or a souvenir for finding say 10 caches that haven’t been found in over a year, etc). By giving these souvenirs, it helps to inspire cachers to go out and find caches that can help them get to a goal.
What’s your thoughts on the idea?
These could be very useful with the “geotrash” battle…
Let’s say I can’t go remove one of my caches and I don’t want it to become geotrash by archiving it. We could put a souvenir attached to it… The person who goes and removes the cache will then receive a badge of honour of some sorts. This could go a long way to help remedy the situation we have now… Not that there is a problem or anything 🙂
I was not really seeing the point of “souvenirs”, perhaps because I don’t understand the whole concept yet, but I totally buy the idea of a badge for helping taking out geotrash. Great idea. I’d let some fight for FTF, I’d fight for those icons!
Oh that would open a whole bucket of worms if they started awarding badges for FTF as there would be no way of policing it. I hope they have enough sense to not implement a FTF souvenir.
I did not mean for FTF, and I agree with you Vbpad on that one. What I meant is like tetagoucher said, a “souvenir” or badge given by the owner who asks for his physical cache to be removed after or for the purpose of archiving.
Is this like when you have a birthday party for your 5 year old and you get some stickers and plastic animals at the Dollar Store to give to the kids at the party
Honestly, I don’t think you’ll ever see a souvenir for cleaning trash.
I think the idea is more geared towards larger things like being able to get the official state/province souvenir, a special souvenir for certain specific caches or events, or perhaps for certain achievements like 100 earthcaches, or 5000 finds, etc.
I think the last thing we want to see is this sort of thing turning into a real mess where people create souvenirs for anything and everything and then the “point” of it gets lost in the mix.
I think they are just trying to keep it evolving and fresh, some things work for some people and some things don’t. Again, like micros or puzzles ingnore if you want. I am happy that they are listening and making new things, like the tattoo icon, I am going to go get mine soon. Thinngs change over time it is inevitable and we need to learn to deal with it.
it’s true ultimately they are running a business and if you keep things the same it’ll become stale and flounder, the best way to stay in business is to continually evolve and try to attract new and interested customers
I see it a bit like discovering TB’s. Discovering TB’s and coins can give you nice icons on your profile and I presume that is why people do that. I recall events where a list of TB tracking numbers were given out.
It seems that souvenirs were created in order to give more icons.
We dont discover trackables but we grab all that we can before and during our trips. This gives us the icons, even though that is not why we grab them. Similarly, I assume that I will get souvenirs also, whether or not I actively go after them.
Like Rev said. To each his own.