Bounty ahoy, thanks to my Navman

The traditional Robert Louis Stevenson-style treasure hunt has now become obsolete. With the development of new media technologies such as GPS (global positioning systems), an online community of modern-day treasure hunters has evolved. Known as geocaching, participants use GPS navigation systems to hide and seek containers (called geocaches or caches) around the world. Once hidden, participants who call themselves cachers, record the geographical coordinates from their GPS device online on geocaching websites such as Geocaching Australia for other participants to find, record, contribute to, and rehide. This free online community was formed by like-minded individuals who found a new creative use for existing technology, and remixed it to suit their pastime.



A typical cache is a small waterproof container containing a logbook and “treasure”, usually toys or trinkets of little value. According to Geocaching Australia, well over 650,000 known caches are subtly hidden around the world for adventurers to find. Ranging in size, a geocache can be as small as a film canister up to the size of buckets and large containers.

Geocachers tend to isolate themselves within this secretive online community, and refer to non-participants as “muggles” – playing on the Harry Potter term for non-magical folk. If a geocache has been vandalised or stolen, it is said to have been “muggled” or plundered. If this occurs, it can be logged online as needing maintenance, which alerts the cache owner so it can be repaired, replaced or archived (removed).

This is an excellent example of how online and offline communities can overlap and interact with each other, and exist only through users’ content contribution. However, the existing technocultural framework of geocaching is not wholly stable. This online community is not immune from impersonators proliferating disinformation. There have been examples where the genuine interest in geocaching has caused conflict in the offline community. With increasing concern of terrorism, some caches have been mistakenly destroyed by Police bomb squads for explosive devices.

Geocaching, at its most fundamental level, promotes an outdoor treasure-hunting game, mediated by new uses for technology. Geocaching communities, like other online communities however must adapt and improve their safeguards to cope with diverging individuals attempts to pirate what was initially developed as an adventurous, good-natured activity.

Geocaching, on another level, is also a fine illustration of produsage. Following the emergence of social software, and the ‘Web2.0’ environment, Bruns (2007, 1) argues that the production of ideas takes place in a collaborative, participatory mode, which dissolves the boundaries between producers and consumers, and enables all participants to simultaneously produce and consume information and knowledge. To define the concept of ‘Web2.0’ in a geocaching context, it is the revolution “in the computer industry caused by the move to the internet as a platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on the new platform” (Bruns. 2007. 1). In a Web2.0 environment, geocaching has harnessed networking effects to remix the prescribed use of GPS technology, the internet, and orienteering, as a creatively remixed and modern form of hunting for buried treasure.

Overall, the creative value of geocaching in the New Economy is significant because it harnesses collective intelligence, making use of new technological platforms to extend human communication and entertainment.

References:
Bruns, A. 2007. The future is user-led: the path towards widespread produsage. QUT: Brisbane.

Geocaching Australia. 2008. Geocaching Australia Homepage. http://www.geocachingaustralia.com.au (accessed 1 May, 2008).