eCache

Jerry Carter Knocks GC.com’s Competition

Because I took Jerry Carter to task over his editorial and the TC.com community commented on it, I actually looked at Today’s Cacher today to read the editorial.

One thing Mr. Carter is proficient at is getting people to discuss his magazine. There is a sock puppet account at GC.com named Today’s Cacher. The GC.com forum guidelines are quite clear about sock puppet accounts.

Sock Puppet accounts will not be allowed. A sock puppet is an account made on an internet message board by a person who already has an account for the purpose of posting anonymously. Use your own account for posting personal opinions. Posts from known sock puppet accounts will be deleted and both the puppet and actual account may be banned from using the services of Groundspeak.

Why is this account permitted to stand each month promoting a commercial enterprise?

Commercial Postings/Solicitations are not allowed. Commercial content as a direct or indirect (either intentional or non-intentional) attempt to solicit customers through a forum post will be edited or deleted. Notwithstanding the above, Groundspeak reserves the right to include limited commercial content in this Forum, in its sole discretion.

That the posts are permitted by Groundspeak speaks volumes.

It has been speculated that Groundspeak financially supports Today’s Cacher. I asked Mr. Carter about this on 26 March 2005. Carter commented on my previous two blog entries (one, two) in the TC.com fora (registration required). He stated,

Second. I like you editorials, very well written. Not entirely truthful, but well written. GC in no way financially supports this magazine, nor do they have any say over the contents.

One has seen the GC.com logo plastered on the Today’s Cacher site from the beginning. I asked Carter if Groundspeak provides anything to have their logo placed on the site. Carter has never answered that direct question.

The silence from Carter is a dodge. The imprimatur that GC.com provides Today’s Cacher with its commercial sock puppet posts is financial support in that it is advertising that others would need to pay money for. Carter’s claim is not to be believed.

On 28 January 2005, Carter posted that the article ScottO wrote would not appear in Today’s Cacher. He further stated that it was his decision alone. What changed that Carter decided to post the article two issues later? Carter has not addressed that.

On 26 March 2005 Carter was back in the TC.com fora announcing he was going to write an editorial about alternate caching sites. He posted a draft of his bit about TC.com.

This is the newest listing site to start up a business. They apparently are trying to learn from Navicache.com mistakes. They do not allow cross postings from other sites. However they have followed the footsteps of Navicache.com by listing types of caches that Geocaching no longer permits, or strictly regulates. What makes Terracaching.com unique is the twist they throw in the mix. If you want to become a member of either Geocaching.com or Navicache.com, all you have to do is open an account and its happy hunting and hiding. Not so with Terracaching.com, oh no, you need to be an upstanding member of the caching community. They have come up with a system that requires two sponsors that are willing to take responsibility for you and your caches. Those two sponsors are the ones that will approve your future caches. The drawback is that is one of your sponsors gets ticked at you or just quits for other reasons, you are back to square one. Also it can take days to get someone to sponsor you. Although I personally got sponsored within 10 minutes. Your results may vary. Another thing that Terracaching.com offers is a point system for you competitive people. I have no idea of how to explain this system. You’ll have to check it out for yourself and see if you’re smarter than me (which I don’t doubt.).

This was not well received by the community. He revised the piece.

This is the newest listing site to start up a business. They apparently are trying to learn from Navicache.com mistakes. They do not allow cross postings from other sites. However they have followed the footsteps of Navicache.com by listing types of caches that Geocaching no longer permits, or strictly regulates. What makes Terracaching.com unique is the twist they throw in the mix. If you want to become a member of either Geocaching.com or Navicache.com, all you have to do is open an account and its happy hunting and hiding. Not so with Terracaching.com, they have come up with a system that requires two sponsors that are willing to take responsibility for you and your caches. Those two sponsors are the ones that will approve your future caches. It usually only takes only a few minutes to get sponsors. I personally got sponsored within 10 minutes. Your results may vary. Another thing that Terracaching.com offers is a point system for you competitive people. I have no idea of how to explain this system. You’ll have to check it out for yourself and see if you’re smarter than me (which I don’t doubt.). This system also encourages people to rate the caches that they find. The object is to place quality caches, versus lame caches, such as Wal-Mart parking lot caches.

I pointed out the frequency that GC.com and Navicache were mentioned in the TC.com section. I also pointed out that he referred to GC.com as geocaching, thus branding big green even more. Neither were corrected in the published editorial.

terracaching.com
This is the newest listing site to start up a business. It is apparently trying to learn from navicache.com’s mistakes. It does not allow cross postings from other sites. However, it has followed the footsteps of navicache.com by listing types of caches that geocaching no longer permits, or strictly regulates, such as virtual and locationless caches. What makes terracaching.com unique is the twist they throw in the mix. If you want to become a member of either geocaching.com or navicache.com, all you have to do is open an account and its happy hunting and hiding. Not so with terracaching.com; they have come up with a system that requires two sponsors that are willing to take responsibility for you and your caches. Those two sponsors are the ones that will approve your future caches. It usually only takes only a few minutes to get sponsors. I personally got sponsored within 10 minutes. Your results may vary. Another thing that terracaching.com offers is a point system for you competitive people. I have no idea of how to explain this system. You’ll have to check it out for yourself. This system also encourages people to rate the caches that they find. The object is to place quality caches, versus lame caches, such as Wal-Mart parking lot caches.

Carter prints what he wants, despite knowing it is inaccurate and flawed. The end of the editorial is classic Carter.

Terracaching.com may have some promise, but I seriously doubt that they or navicache.com will find a niche in this market for the following reasons:

# These sites seem to have a few vocal people that are always in the front of the crowd voicing their discontent for geocaching.com. I’m not sure that the alternate sites really want these members since the majority of their members are made up of satisfied customers of geocaching.com. I believe in the end that these few vocal people will cause more harm than good.

# Besides listing the few caches that geocaching.com doesn’t allow or strictly regulates, they really offer nothing new. Well, besides terracaching.com with their point system, which I doubt really attracts that many cachers.

Just curious, is this written for geocachers everywhere? Today’s Cacher has acted as one of those feel-good magazines. Everything is right with the world and no controversy will be tolerated. Then in an editorial Carter takes cheap shots at the other sites. Splendid and the type of behavior I have come to expect from him.

The title of the editorial, Does Geocaching.com Have Competition?, shows the bias Carter is working from; caching can only be seen through the eyes of his benefactor. The link from the previous editorial is the sub-title of the article, Or just copycats? Enough said.

Today’s Cacher is a publication being used to promote one commercial entity to the detriment of cachers everywhere.