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Thursday, October 20, 2005

Geocachers Turned Grave Robbers? Absolutely ridiculous... I know this is a little off topic (Geocaching) for this site, but it is such a great example of news gone wrong that I had to mention it.

I don't know how many of you are 'in the know' when it comes to Geocaching but don't worry... you are obviously not alone!

We have a geocaching oriented podcast (a geocast or podcache I suppose) in our directory, and wrote a blog entry previously on the subject.

I won't go over the story again... you can read it below, but basically a local mayor (neil craig) and newspaper (the barrie examiner) made ridiculous remarks about Geocaching, a very community friendly sport, before bothering to find out any facts. It was such a ridiculous story that it has been picked up across Canada already...

The blog entry below was written by a friend who runs http://www.centralontariocachers.com/index.htm . Letters have been written both to the Mayor and the paper and the mayor at least has made a retraction about the sport of Geocaching. We contacted the local TV station who released a correction of the story...

This story is so bizarre that it would be funny if it didn't damage the credibility of a great sport (Geocaching)... Long Live The Blog!!!

Read on and give me your comments:

Thursday, October 20, 2005

Geocachers Wrongly accused of being Grave Robbers in Oro-Medonte historic site.

Read the short newspaper column here

I am going to have to ask you to bear with my tone in this blog. With the events that have transpired through geocaching in the last week, my patience with the media has been pushed to the limit.

It turns out that a local Historic location was victim of some vandals who now are believed to be grave robbers. Leave it up to the media to assume that because there is a virtual cache location at this spot that it MUST have been a Geocacher looking for "Buried Treasure".

News articles quickly spread implicating Geocachers as the culprit for these crimes.What pisses me off the most is how hastily the media were in crucifying Geocachers as the perpetrators in this case. Most of these media sources including, but not limited to The Barrie Examiner, CICX 104 and Barrie's B101 all had the audacity to assume that these words were fact without doing some investigation.

Now I am not a complete idot. I am aware that "Good" news is useless news, but this has gone too far, but if This Article has caused even ONE person to think twice about a sport/hobby that has given so much back to the community and gotten so many people outdoors into a healthy lifestyle for them and their families, Shame on these media outlets.

I have attempted to contact the above Media organizations. I have not heard back from any of them. I would fully expect contact back from at least the Barrie Examiner. If I do not, and if I see one more Barrie Examiner newspaper on my driveway, I will do everything in my power to charge them with Littering because I don't want that trash on my property.

posted by Swifteroo ¶ 16:28 0 comments Who's Got A Podcast? If you look at a who's who of the podverse right now, you will see a decent cross section of industries that have jumped on the bandwagon. Podcasting has been commercialized, whether some of us like it or not; which just emphasizes the power of this medium.

Podcasting is no longer about garage bands and basement talk-shows, indie music and amateur sound effects. Over the past year, if one thing has become clear, it is that the power of voice is stronger than the power of the written word. A good speaker can control his audience far more easily than a good writer.

This is the reason so many marketers are using solutions like audio generator on their websites to 'talk' to new visitors. Seeing the potential of this powerful medium, big business has now moved in and firmly claimed their (fair?) share of the podverse landscape.

So who's Podcasting? Everybody I think...

Rock bands... Pornographers... Politicians and Governments... Retailors... The Police... Fire Departments... Churches... Universities... and now even Realtors (propertycasting!)...

And yes, the list goes on and on and on and...

Why? Well, to quote Matt Barr, communications director for a la mode inc, a Web services provider:

"That's what podcasting has done across media -- make it more convenient," Barr said. "It's like TiVo for audio. It's natural."

So, obviously, natural for people means 'good breeding ground for commercial ventures'.

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