Good morning everyone.
This week's fun fact is all about the Webcam caches. According to Project-gc, there are 114 webcam caches in the United States, with 14 in California and none in North Dakota plus nine other states that don't have one. On the Canadian side of the border, there is a total of 7 webcam caches. Three in Nova Scotia, 2 in Ontario and one each in B.C. and Saskatchewan. I have only one webcam cache found so far. That one was in Calgary (as noted in my last blog) and has been archived since.
This week will be a little different. Instead of caches I've found or adventures I've been on, I want to look at Geocaching in social media and what I've experienced so far. When I started geocaching, getting involved in the social media side of things wasn't on my mind at the time. I did post some pics on my personal Facebook page, but that was about the extent of my social media experience.
I did get away from Instagram for awhile. Facebook has always been my place to post my pictures of neat places, geocaches, and milestones that I hit. My posts were only seen by my FB friends, both fellow geocachers and muggles alike, although all my geocaching album pics can be seen by the general public.
At some point about a year and a half ago, I started to branch out into the You Tube realm. No, I didn't start posting videos, but I started to discover others who were doing this. One person I found, and I would soon learn that he is, in my opinion, royalty amongst the vloggers out there is Joshua, the Geocaching Vlogger. This opened a whole new door to geocaching in social media. There are many geocaching videos out there. I wasn't aware of how many until later.
One form of social media that I didn't really do was Twitter. I joined that late in 2017, but not for geocaching. It was for another game to support a local player and fellow geocacher that was playing and was no longer able to. A whole new world opened up for me in terms of geocaching in the social media. I'm following and connecting with other geocachers from all over the world. Many have there own vlogs or blogs. Some even have podcasts. It's hard to follow every vlog, every blog, every podcast. I try when I can. My go to ones right now are Geocache Talk podcast every Sunday evening, (which can be found on You Tube) and USGeocachingHour every Monday on Twitter. I try to catch Joshua's latest vlog, along with Hakliva, SoDak Zak, Geocaching Kaity (her latest vlog has her caching in Piedmont Park and avoiding muggles), Chasing the Iron man (if I need someone to climb a tree for a cache, I'm calling this guy :D ), Kevin the Geocacher, Geocaching with MotoJoe and Cache Canada. That's a lot and it only scratches the surface as to what is out there for vlogs. I enjoy them as they present their own unique stories and adventures. Again, I live vicariously though their videos as the vlogger goes on their latest adventure and you get to tag along for the ride. As for blogs, my #1 blog that I must read is a weekly one from Jangie or Geocaching Jangie. Her latest blog discusses 3D printed containers and how we could be seeing more of this type of container in the very near future. Another blog is The Geocaching Junkie, an Irish born geocacher, and Thanks for the Adventure from Minnesota. Again, they present their own views and adventures which is always fun to read. I would also participate in another online contest shortly after joining Twitter and win some personalized cards from I.B. Geocaching Supplies:
Of course there's the multiple groups on Facebook. You Might Be A Geocacher If...., Geocaching Puzzle Help (for those who love solving puzzles and to help others who are stumped), You Might Be A Geocaching Stats Junkie if..., plus many, many other geocaching related pages that I don't even know about. Then there's the local page belonging to Manitoba Geocaching Association. I do have posting privileges on the MBGA page where I publish the monthly milestone and stats report for Manitoba geocachers. I started up my own Facebook page as another avenue for people to find my blog. @geocachingwithgeocacherken
Wanting to do something creative, I asked about vlogging from a local vlogger, Hakliva. To be a vlogger required dedication and commitment to getting new content out on a regular schedule to maintain an audience. Blogging seemed an easier way to go. I would get help from Jangie on this and a local cacher, glacier_ice for the web side of things. Having done a streak of 1,000+ days, gone on several day trips thru out the province and across the border to North Dakota and Minnesota, it shouldn't be a surprise that I'd have tales of adventures to share as well. So here I am, adding my footprint into the "geocaching in social media".
Geocaching is what you want to get out of it. For me, it's about the adventures, the people I meet, and the places I've been. Sharing all of that with others who weren't there for the ride is just as fun as I get to relive the experience and laugh at some of my own misadventures. Who doesn't like a good story? It's even better when the story actually happened. Social media allows for the retelling of those tales and allows for discussions of various topics that could be helpful to a newer geocacher. Social media allows the many geocachers around the world to connect and share their stories. We may live thousands of miles apart, but social media brings geocachers closer together and you discover that you have more friends than you knew you had.
That's it, that's all for this week. Peace Out, Enjoy, and remember, geocaching is meant to be fun.
This week's fun fact is all about the Webcam caches. According to Project-gc, there are 114 webcam caches in the United States, with 14 in California and none in North Dakota plus nine other states that don't have one. On the Canadian side of the border, there is a total of 7 webcam caches. Three in Nova Scotia, 2 in Ontario and one each in B.C. and Saskatchewan. I have only one webcam cache found so far. That one was in Calgary (as noted in my last blog) and has been archived since.
This week will be a little different. Instead of caches I've found or adventures I've been on, I want to look at Geocaching in social media and what I've experienced so far. When I started geocaching, getting involved in the social media side of things wasn't on my mind at the time. I did post some pics on my personal Facebook page, but that was about the extent of my social media experience.
I'm not sure how I got started on Instagram or exactly when, but I was soon following other goecachers, and they following me, in other parts of the country, continent, and world. You can say I was living vicariously through their caching experiences as they shared all the neat caches or awesome places that geocaching took them. These are places that I may never get to but always cool to see. Some of the pictures are better than the ones you find in a travel brochure. It was on Instagram that I participated in my first online geocaching contest and won surprisingly. I found out that I won as I was returning home from finding a geocache. My prize was the pathtag you see below. This was my very first pathtag, something I knew very little about, but thanks to social media, I learned something new. I would soon find out that many bloggers and vloggers have contests as a way to say thank you to all those who take the time to read/view their latest adventure.
I did get away from Instagram for awhile. Facebook has always been my place to post my pictures of neat places, geocaches, and milestones that I hit. My posts were only seen by my FB friends, both fellow geocachers and muggles alike, although all my geocaching album pics can be seen by the general public.
At some point about a year and a half ago, I started to branch out into the You Tube realm. No, I didn't start posting videos, but I started to discover others who were doing this. One person I found, and I would soon learn that he is, in my opinion, royalty amongst the vloggers out there is Joshua, the Geocaching Vlogger. This opened a whole new door to geocaching in social media. There are many geocaching videos out there. I wasn't aware of how many until later.
One form of social media that I didn't really do was Twitter. I joined that late in 2017, but not for geocaching. It was for another game to support a local player and fellow geocacher that was playing and was no longer able to. A whole new world opened up for me in terms of geocaching in the social media. I'm following and connecting with other geocachers from all over the world. Many have there own vlogs or blogs. Some even have podcasts. It's hard to follow every vlog, every blog, every podcast. I try when I can. My go to ones right now are Geocache Talk podcast every Sunday evening, (which can be found on You Tube) and USGeocachingHour every Monday on Twitter. I try to catch Joshua's latest vlog, along with Hakliva, SoDak Zak, Geocaching Kaity (her latest vlog has her caching in Piedmont Park and avoiding muggles), Chasing the Iron man (if I need someone to climb a tree for a cache, I'm calling this guy :D ), Kevin the Geocacher, Geocaching with MotoJoe and Cache Canada. That's a lot and it only scratches the surface as to what is out there for vlogs. I enjoy them as they present their own unique stories and adventures. Again, I live vicariously though their videos as the vlogger goes on their latest adventure and you get to tag along for the ride. As for blogs, my #1 blog that I must read is a weekly one from Jangie or Geocaching Jangie. Her latest blog discusses 3D printed containers and how we could be seeing more of this type of container in the very near future. Another blog is The Geocaching Junkie, an Irish born geocacher, and Thanks for the Adventure from Minnesota. Again, they present their own views and adventures which is always fun to read. I would also participate in another online contest shortly after joining Twitter and win some personalized cards from I.B. Geocaching Supplies:
Of course there's the multiple groups on Facebook. You Might Be A Geocacher If...., Geocaching Puzzle Help (for those who love solving puzzles and to help others who are stumped), You Might Be A Geocaching Stats Junkie if..., plus many, many other geocaching related pages that I don't even know about. Then there's the local page belonging to Manitoba Geocaching Association. I do have posting privileges on the MBGA page where I publish the monthly milestone and stats report for Manitoba geocachers. I started up my own Facebook page as another avenue for people to find my blog. @geocachingwithgeocacherken
Another aspect to social media I would discover is Patreon. This is where followers can subscribe with a small amount (maybe $5/month, depending on the host) to a blogger or vlogger of their choice. This money offsets the cost to run a podcast, the time and video equipment to make a vlog, or owning a webpage for your blog. In return, the paying members get swag (pathtags, patches, trackables, newsletters, recognition, to name a few things) and special privileges (behind-the-scenes, sneak peaks, special contests) as a way of the host saying thank you for the support.
Another avenue for social media is Periscope. This is something I know very little about as I'm only checking this site out now. I did ask a Periscope user (Jangie) and it's similar to Facebook live. Periscope and Twitter are connected so your Twitter followers will see when you're live and can watch along as the host goes about their adventure. There is also a live chat with the host as the live stream takes place. The current plan is to give this venue a try during the week while I'm on vacation (in this case, staycation since I'm not travelling anywhere) and see where this goes. It could be entertaining in a good way or could rank up there with William Hung of American Idol fame (She Bang).
There are many web pages and apps that are geocaching related. Project-gc for all the stat junkies like myself. There's also cacherstats.com if you want to know where you rank amongst other geocachers. As I sit here composing this blog, another web page has come to my attention via Twitter. Geocachingcentral.com has links to various pages for vlogs, blogs, puzzles, podcasts, etc.
There are many web pages and apps that are geocaching related. Project-gc for all the stat junkies like myself. There's also cacherstats.com if you want to know where you rank amongst other geocachers. As I sit here composing this blog, another web page has come to my attention via Twitter. Geocachingcentral.com has links to various pages for vlogs, blogs, puzzles, podcasts, etc.
Wanting to do something creative, I asked about vlogging from a local vlogger, Hakliva. To be a vlogger required dedication and commitment to getting new content out on a regular schedule to maintain an audience. Blogging seemed an easier way to go. I would get help from Jangie on this and a local cacher, glacier_ice for the web side of things. Having done a streak of 1,000+ days, gone on several day trips thru out the province and across the border to North Dakota and Minnesota, it shouldn't be a surprise that I'd have tales of adventures to share as well. So here I am, adding my footprint into the "geocaching in social media".
Geocaching is what you want to get out of it. For me, it's about the adventures, the people I meet, and the places I've been. Sharing all of that with others who weren't there for the ride is just as fun as I get to relive the experience and laugh at some of my own misadventures. Who doesn't like a good story? It's even better when the story actually happened. Social media allows for the retelling of those tales and allows for discussions of various topics that could be helpful to a newer geocacher. Social media allows the many geocachers around the world to connect and share their stories. We may live thousands of miles apart, but social media brings geocachers closer together and you discover that you have more friends than you knew you had.
That's it, that's all for this week. Peace Out, Enjoy, and remember, geocaching is meant to be fun.
Hi Ken! Great article :) Thanks, Chasing The ironman is honoured for being included in that list of vloggers - that's some excellent company! Great vloggers and geocachers. Enjoyed your overview of geocaching and social media. Keep caching! We'll meet someday I'm sure! :)
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