For those new to the mailing list, I posted in the past my concerns about taking something like Google Maps and mashing them with existing applications - and therefore relying completely on an external company with no formal relationship. Well, it didn't take long for us to realize that we might and well hang out with the cool kids and smoke some Google Maps.
Here’s a link to our approach with Google Maps + Geocaches: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/gmnearest.aspx It centers on an area close to Groundspeak headquarters, but you can use the Yahoo web geocoding service to zoom in on whatever region you like. Our approach in the page design was to have a basic application where you could seek out all the caches, and a premium version that would allow you to use additional features like bookmarking different caches you want to seek out. Our hope was to increase Premium Memberships which are ultimately the lifeblood of the company, while still providing useful tools for the casual geocacher. As you can see I think we created a happy medium. Our approach at this point is we can still provide the basic, previous method of doing searches from a distance and showing those results while experimenting with alternate mapping methods like Google Maps and Earth. Like this: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/nearest.aspx?zip=98121 We also played with Ka-map but decided it is still a bit too early in its infancy to rely on for a production mapping tool, but are happy to know there is an alternative in case the mapping switch is turned off or mangled with advertising. _______________________________________________ Geowanking mailing list [email protected] http://lists.burri.to/mailman/listinfo/geowanking
