Blogshares Contest #3

--Industry Proposed: Sports > Geocaching

--Description and History: Geocaching
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Geocaching is an outdoor sport that involves the use of a Global Positioning System ("GPS") receiver to find a "geocache" (or "cache") placed anywhere in the world. A typical cache is a small, waterproof container containing a logbook and "treasure". Geocaching is a unique take on a traditional Easter-egg hunt in that it uses two recent technologies, the GPS and the Internet.

The sport of Geocaching was made possible by the "turning off" of the Selective Availability of the Global Positioning System on May 1, 2000. The first documented placement of a cache with GPS assistance took place on May 3, 2000 by Dave Ulmer. The location was posted on the usenet newsgroup sci.geo.satellite-nav. By May 6, 2000 it had been found twice and logged once.

Geocaching is growing rapidly in popularity all over the world. As of August 21, 2004 there were 116,015 active caches in 210 countries posted on Geocaching.com (http://www.geocaching.com).


--Modern Non-Blog Resource: The primary source for Geocaching information in the US is Geocaching - The Official Global GPS Cache Hunt Site


--Blog Examples:
Geonap's Journal: A slightly out of date blog, but shows the kind of activity that's possible. Note the activity thru the summer months, altho this is not--strictly speaking--a summer sport.

GeoROCKS! Adventures in Geocaching: Another diary of geocache activities and stories.

Geocaching: Current postings demonstrating that this isn't just for summer.

The Triple-S Blog: A cute entry on the "travel bug" Morton Moo Cow -- a kind of twist on the Vacation Lawn Gnome idea.

--Link to my user page in Blogshares:
http://www.blogshares.com/user.php?id=22502