Garmin bought Opencaching.com

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Fledermaus
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Re: Garmin bought Opencaching.com

Post by Fledermaus » Sat Dec 11, 2010 1:27 am

What's the "poop" on that website now? When I accessed www.opencaching.com through Google, the website comes up in in Dutch! I'm sorry, I don't speak that language. The big white box on the main screen, after logon, showed "Tacoma Washington" and displayed a cache pin on the map and then I changed the name to Seattle and saw two cache pins. Other than that, navigating the site using Babelfish is a pain in the backside.
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Re: Garmin bought Opencaching.com

Post by RVRoadTrip » Sat Dec 11, 2010 10:14 am

I posted a question to Garmin on their forums... Why did you take and existing name, rebrand it and launch a site using it?

I also found that the only communication garmin had with anyone from the OC community was to determine the cache prefix. Garmin wanted to us OC but it was already in use, so they settled on OX. Garmin asked one of the OC developers to sign an NDA to talk in detail but the dev refused so garmin didn't say much else. Now that the site is live, much of what we wanted to know is now public... everything but the "why".

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Re: Garmin bought Opencaching.com

Post by NativTxn » Mon Dec 13, 2010 11:02 am

I wish the OC community had secured the sites for .com, .org, .net and any other associated domains (if nothing else, just to list the links to the other world sites). Then we wouldn't have to worry about this. :( Hindsight, huh?
Last edited by NativTxn on Mon Dec 13, 2010 4:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Garmin bought Opencaching.com

Post by DudleyGrunt » Mon Dec 13, 2010 11:26 am

.com was taken and dates back to an aborted attempt to launch a site in 2003, but I guess, in theory someone could have acquired each of them. But, still, Garmin is essentially asserting that the OC community is so insignificant that it doesn't matter.
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Re: Garmin bought Opencaching.com

Post by glorkar » Mon Dec 13, 2010 2:03 pm

I didn't even realize they had a forum. I would have posted a response in the thread you started, but that dang site wouldn't keep me logged in. I would enter my info 5 or 6 times before it would take. Then the next page I clicked on, I was logged out. Absolute crap.
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Re: Garmin bought Opencaching.com

Post by DudleyGrunt » Mon Dec 13, 2010 2:19 pm

For some reason, even though they say they want all the user feedback, they don't have the forum linked on the main page.
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RVRoadTrip
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Re: Garmin bought Opencaching.com

Post by RVRoadTrip » Mon Dec 13, 2010 3:27 pm

DudleyGrunt wrote:For some reason, even though they say they want all the user feedback, they don't have the forum linked on the main page.
They do, it's tiny at the bottom of the page.

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Re: Garmin bought Opencaching.com

Post by DudleyGrunt » Mon Dec 13, 2010 4:14 pm

Ahh... Thanks. I've been needing to manually change "www" to "forums" in the URL.

Better, but still not prominent.
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chilehead
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Re: Garmin bought Opencaching.com

Post by chilehead » Mon Dec 13, 2010 6:40 pm

glorkar wrote:I didn't even realize they had a forum. I would have posted a response in the thread you started, but that dang site wouldn't keep me logged in. I would enter my info 5 or 6 times before it would take. Then the next page I clicked on, I was logged out. Absolute crap.
Yeah, something real screwy with their forum software. I can't stay logged in either.

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Re: Garmin bought Opencaching.com

Post by DudleyGrunt » Tue Dec 14, 2010 9:08 am

There is a new blog entry from The Geocaching Journal on GC.com vs. OC.com, with acknowledge of possible effects on OCUS. Take a look and comment, if you feel so moved.


Partial quote:
(1) The Fate of OpenCaching.us.
A lot of people see this as a battle between gc.com and oc.com. I don’t. Not yet anyway. Instead, I see this as more of a detriment to opencaching.us; another open source cache listing service with no commercial ties (truly free). Which is really too bad, as that site also has a great user interface, and a wonderful, built-in cache search, filter, and download tool. Where were all of the open caching supporters, who have suddenly jumped on the Garmin bandwagon, three months ago when oc.us launched? There’s no way opencaching.us can compete with the Garmin PR juggernaut. Was Garmin’s choice for their webiste name merely just a coincidence?
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