Groundspeak’s Role in Geocaching
When I started geocaching in Moncton back in 2006, all I knew was that there was a website where I could download geocache data for my GPS, and go find caches. As time went on, I learned of this company known as Groundspeak. They were the owners and operators of geocaching.com. I never gave it much thought but as time has gone by, I’ve become a lot more familiar with what Groundspeak actually does, vs the hobby of geocaching.
A quick history lesson. I believe in the very early days of geocaching, coordinates and cache listings were just posted to a forum. Then they moved to another website, and eventually came to be maintained by Jeremy Irish. Jeremy decided to form a company around the concept of geocaching and created Groundspeak as the company that would own and operate geocaching.com. Fast forward to today, we have the largest repository of geocache listings all found on Groundspeak’s website.
Now, the interesting thing about Groundspeak is that they technically see themselves as purely a listing service. You own your listings, and everything about them. Groundspeak has no rights to your listings but they have all rights to the website, and have the ability to control what goes on it.
This is where the fine line between what geocaching actually is, and what Groundspeak perpetuates it to be gets drawn. Many folks out there, some on this very website, have a tendency to view the Groundspeak “guidelines” as the hard and fast rules of geocaching. In fact, they have nothing to do with the actual hobby themselves and everything to do with how geocaches are listed on their website. They also provide information about the hobby in general but they do not own geocaching. They own a website and all things related to the website.
I bring all of this up because at the end of the day, whether they are just a listing service or not, they are the ones that have the largest influence in the sport of geocaching. Their guidelines dictate how people publish caches and how they interact with geocaches. Because of this, I do think Groundspeak has a responsibility to the geocaching community to build on the things we want. The problem is that, they are a for-profit company and need to make money.
This is where things get a little difficult. People have plenty of ideas about geocaching and would love to see Groundspeak explore them. The problem is, now that they have become a lot more popular, they must find a way to meet the needs and wants of the people who play this game, and those which will make the company money. I mean, the reality is, if you’re in business, you’re in it to pay your bills and make money. That’s what businesses do. Businesses don’t survive by doing everything everyone else wants them to do without paying attention to what will actually sustain the business.
Like every other business, Groundspeak has employees that get paid and in order for those people to continue to get paid, Groundspeak needs to keep it’s business open and profitable. Otherwise, it goes under, and for us, we lose everything.
So how does a company continue to make good money, while still providing a quality service that us geocachers can enjoy? That’s a real hard thing to do. With millions of geocachers worldwide, and every one of them with their own opinion on what should be done next, it’s virtually impossible for them to pick something to work on and keep everyone happy. If they spend all their time working on mobile apps, people will gripe about the website. If they spend their time on the website, people will gripe about bugs in Wherigo or bugs in the mobile apps. No matter where they put their time, people are going to complain.
Which brings me to my final point. At the end of the day, Groundspeak can try to listen to what the community is saying, but they are going to do what they feel is right and what works best for the community, as well as what makes the most business sense. In some cases, that’s not going to jive with what the community wants.
I was going to say that we haven’t seen much in the way of innovation from Groundspeak lately but I would tend to say that’s not true. They did try, and unfortunately fail, with Challenges. And now it seems that they are trying something else new called Lab Caches. Here is to hoping that as time progresses, we see more innovation that meets what the cacher’s really want, and helps sustain their business. Otherwise, we may all end up giving up on geocaching completely, and turning to something like this.
Here is info about lab caches.
http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=314497&hl=geocaching labs&st=0
It is hard to remember that they make the rules about what they are willing to list and that they have no ownership of anything other than some data that we give them.
How does this company make money and turn a profit? By using over 400 volunteers worldwide to do the work for them. I know of no other company which does this. Without this massive group of volunteers, Groundspeak would likely grind to a halt.
Selling memberships and trackable codes are two big ways.
Very true Rev, those two things do generate a fair bit of revenue for Groundspeak. But, my point is still valid. If Groundspeak even had a fraction of those volunteers on staff as paid employees for the work they do, I wonder if they would be able to stay in business, or whether it would be profitable for them to do so.
Probably not but that is why it works so well, the hundreds of volunteers. They have many people who love geocaching so much that they are willing to donate some of their own time to make things better for everyone. Considering some of the people and problems they may face they keep doing it despite the time they give to keep things working so well. I would guess most of them see it as a positive give back to something they enjoy as opposed to it being a “job”.
So I would assume it would be okay if Parker Brothers started doing the same thing, having volunteers build their board games in a factory which the company then sells to us for a profit? We would be outraged at that behaviour from a large corporation, so why do we turn a blind eye here?
I’m not disagreeing with you Rev, you make valid points. I like bringing these things up to get people thinking and hear differing opinions on things. I like hearing other viewpoints and seeing things from other perspectives that I hadn’t considered before.
^^^^ Yup.
BTW, while I’m here — the Lab caches were fun – but they were certainly “kick the tires” experiments; I’m pretty sure GS learned a lot from them (e.g web based, mostly accessed by mobile devices etc) and future iterations will be easier to use and more feature rich.
forestfauna, I understand what you are saying and it is unique but you choose to pay a membership and you choose to buy products from them otherwise it cost you nothing to play Groundspeak’s game. You have other options out there if you don’t like this one. I myself am glad there are people who are willing to make this game better be it Groundspeak, the reviewers or even people like Zor and I who provide sites like this for those who use it and appreciate it. If this game did cost me a lot of money I probably wouldn’t play and I see no point in picking it apart and then continuing to play.
not to mention geocaching.com is one of hundreds of thousands of online communities that are run/moderated by volunteers. game companies do this (blizzard & bioware are 2 of the largest game companies in the world), news sites do this (slashdot.org, digg.com, reddit.com, fark.com), cooking sites do this (allrecipes.com)… etc etc etc
and since the game started in a volunteer moderated way on public news groups, there’s no reason to change it and LOADS of precedents that show why you would build a business around it.
no forestfauna you point is not valid.
Groundspeak is unique, yes, as it is a listing service, and they do provide that service free if one desires to play that way. I am going on almost 6 years as a cacher now, and feel very blessed with many positive experiences which far outweigh any negative ones towards this game, or sport, or whatever a person chooses to call it. I am very grateful for the hard work and dedication that volunteers do to keep this sport alive and interesting through reviewing, promoting, etc. And I am also fully cognizant of the end results of their hard work and dedication. 😉
I am not looking to pick anything apart, I just have these random thoughts pop in my head, and would like to debate them, to hear others opinions on subjects, to listen to other viewpoints, and hopefully, gain new insights into subjects about this game we all enjoy. I offer my opinions, my thoughts, nothing more. I simply don’t sugarcoat them.
Lets imagine for a minute that groundspeak, geocaching and everything else involved were free. Free to play without any cost involved to the players at all. ( well except buying a GPS )
How would groundspeak run things. The people at HQ volunteering all their time to this game. They would have to work somewhere else for 8 hours a day to support themselves. Then work ” X ” amount of hours at HQ.
Who would buy and pay for the servers that the database is held on. These things are not cheap. Who would pay for the rent/lease/or bank load on the building where all the servers are held and the people work out of.
Who would pay for the electricity to power the building. The water and sewer bill. Maintenance. Janitor service. All the fancy swag.
As the game of geocaching grew I think two things became apparent. There was money to be made here. And there was money needed to expand and meet a demand of a growing hobby.
As we all know money can be an evil and greedy entity. But as you can see from what I wrote there is a cost to run the show.
So some may think, there are other websites and forums that are free to be involved with. Why can’t geocaching.com just be a free server where we can do our thing.
Because nothing is free. The game of geocaching is too big to just be on a free server somewhere where we can access it. One server ain’t gonna do it. Which comes back to more servers, more money, more people to maintain it, etc, etc.
There is a cost involved to run it and pay employees. We can see that. But is the money involved enough to pay reviewers. I don’t know. Groundspeak does know, but I don’t think they will tell me or you. Obviously they make enough money to stay in business. And geocaching to them is a business, not a hobby or game like it is to us ( although they may play as well ).
So do you think the reviewers mind they are not being paid. I think if they did they would not be doing it. Should they be paid. That’s a question that can be debated till the end of time and will still not have a definite answer, but I know people will still try.
Consider other activities that you could get involved with. Will it be cheaper or more expensive than a membership and a GPSr.
And more important, even though reviewers are not paid, given the chance, would you do it for free. I am sure I would.
amen to all of the above EBE. well said.
i certainly WOULD volunteer to review given the chance
just as i volunteer my hours to the cause already.
we all throw time at this stuff in some way. that’s what makes it fun and interesting most of the time.
it’s certainly the most rewarding part.
much more so than just getting smileys imho.
E.B.E. 51 … you beat me to the punch …. I’ve been a volunteer in many a organization and learn a long time ago … you NEVER shit on a volunteer!
Methinks, enough verbal ‘D’ on this one … bring on the smileys
Apparently, and not unexpectedly, I’m not the first to think this way:
http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=289997&st=0&p=4966413&hl=unpaid%20volunteer&fromsearch=1&#entry4966413
http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=300151&st=50&p=5100210&hl=unpaid%20volunteer&fromsearch=1&#entry5100210
On another post, a reviewer mentioned that in 2009, they estimated their efforts to the cause at 5-7 hours a day, 7 days week, with only Christmas off. That is a bit much for being a volunteer.
The “official” forums are always full of contempt for Groundspeak, reviewers and other cachers. I ignore those post when I go there but I did look at these two and it seems most people have no problem with how it currently works, just like on here. I would prefer to see discussions on here that actually help make things better not to discourage people. There are many things that we could pick apart but in the end what good does it do and will it change things, probably not. Isn’t there a facebook page for that 😉
In my post I didn’t mean to say I disagree with what forestfauna is saying. I understand and do see his point. I don’t think he was attacking groundspeak, just asking a question as to the way things run.
Groundspeak is a business and will run things the way they need to, to keep running.
We, as geocachers, play our game and don’t think too much about what happens in the background. I let groundspeak do their thing and I do mine. If something drastic happens in the future to really spoil the enjoyment I have for this hobby, I guess I’ll find something else.
But for now I keep it simple. Let groundspeak fuss over the details while I find caches, get outside and enjoy the trails, and continue to explore new places and meet fantastic people. This is what is really important about the game.
I have no issue with the volunteers that keep groundspeak running and those that are paid through HQ. I’ll look at it another way, if they are willing to volunteer that much time to building a game/hobby/sport then I am more than willing to volunteer my time to play said game and contribute. I can’t count the hours now that I’ve put into building the interest in the game which I know we all do. We are in many ways the first point of contact within the game to those interested in joining us. If we don’t volunteer our time doing what we all do to beat the drum then I would dare say Groundspeak would have a much more difficult time growing and maintaining. We are all part of what makes this tick.
One last point, with so many remote volunteers if they were to begin getting paid for the work that they do then there is that much more chance of the system being abused so they make as much as they can. GS would never be able to fully control what is going on and therefore earning money would be the first priority of anyone involved in managing how the game works. Ultimately I don’t think GS is hurting in the bank account with the influx of new players the last couple of years. Here’s to hoping they continue to improving things so they don’t get stagnant and people lose interest because they rested on their laurels. I also hope those volunteers like the reviewers do get some sort of perks for their efforts.