Join the hunt to discover lost treasures from The Revenant

Does travel to extreme locations, facing the unknown, and surviving harsh winter wilderness sound like you? Join the hunt to discover lost treasures from The Revenant.

This winter, in association with Geocaching HQ, Twentieth Century Fox Filmed Entertainment has hidden a series of twenty limited edition movie props — as Trackables! Launching in select cities across the United States, Mexico, Europe, and Australia, the movie props will travel from location to location as geocachers log their finds and place them in a new geocache to continue the artifact’s journey. Share your find via social media by posting a photo using #TheRevenant. Check out more details on the Fox Movies page (scroll to the middle). 

The authentic movie props range from leather bags to ceramic pots to ropes.
The authentic movie props range from leather bags to ceramic pots to ropes.

About the movie: Inspired by true events, The Revenant is an immersive and visceral cinematic experience capturing one man’s epic adventure of survival and the extraordinary power of the human spirit. In an expedition of the uncharted American wilderness, legendary explorer Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) is brutally attacked by a bear and left for dead by members of his own hunting team. In a quest to survive, Glass endures unimaginable grief as well as the betrayal of his confidant John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy). Guided by sheer will and the love of his family, Glass must navigate a vicious winter in a relentless pursuit to live and find redemption. The Revenant is directed and co-written by renowned filmmaker, Academy Award winner Alejandro G. Iñárritu (Birdman, Babel).

There are even several geocaches out there (predating this movie) about Hugh Glass, including “Legendary Hunters – Hugh Glass” in Pennsylvania and “Old West #9 Hugh Glass” in Utah.

 

 

We can’t wait to see the adventures unfold as these Trackables travel to incredible places and continue to be discovered! Do you see your favorite movie prop trackable in this trailer?

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Wir wollen von Dir hören!

Mitarbeiter des Geocaching-Hauptquartiers machen sich auf den Weg, um herauszufinden, was Geocacher wollen.

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Es wird immer spannend im Geocaching-Hauptquartier, wenn neue Funktionen wie das Nachrichten-Center oder die Trackable-Unterstützung in der kostenlosen App bereit sind, um mit der Geocaching-Community geteilt zu werden. Der Weg zu einer neuen Funktion ist weit – Designer, Entwickler und viele andere entwickeln und testen sie mehrere Monate, bevor sie einsatzbereit ist.

Aber bevor sie damit anfangen können, müssen wir herausfinden, welche Funktionen am wichtigsten sind. Wie machen wir das? Wir fragen Geocacher, wie sie das Spiel spielen. Ein Team von Mitarbeitern des Geocaching-Hauptquartiers reiste dazu kürzlich zum “Going Caching”-Mega-Event in Rome im US-Bundesstaat Georgia. Lies die komplette Geschichte und erfahre, wie Du Dich beteiligen kannst.

Sag uns Deine Meinung! Nimm an der Umfrage zu Challenge-Geocaches teil.

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Im April diesen Jahres haben wir eine Pause für die Einreichung neuer Challenge-Geocaches begonnen, um Informationen zu sammeln und auszuwerten, welchen Einfluss sie auf das Spiel haben. Nun wollen wir auch von Euch hören! In dieser Umfrage könnt Ihr uns wissen lassen, was für Erfahrungen Ihr mit Challenge-Geocaches gehabt habt.

Was ist ein Challenge-Geocache? Mit Challenge-Geocaches können Geocache-Owner eine Herausforderung (“Challenge”) stellen, welche erfüllt werden muss, bevor dieser Geocache-Typ geloggt werden kann. Eine Qualifikation für einen Challenge-Geocache kann z.B. sein, Geocaches an allen Tagen eines Jahres zu finden. Challenge-Geocaches machen Spaß. Aber obwohl sie im letzten Jahrzehnt in der Geocaching-Community immer beliebter geworden sind, haben sie auch oft zu Verwirrungen geführt und können extra Hürden für die ehrenamtlichen Reviewer in der Community darstellen.

Indem Du an dieser Umfrage teilnimmst, kannst Du uns helfen, ein besseres Rahmenwerk für Challenge-Geocaches zu bilden – für mehr Geocaching-Spaß. Vielen Dank!

Geocaching HQ’s Product Team Goes on the Road

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Whether you’re developing an app, building a website or designing Tupperware containers, it’s important that you have people in your organization who are passionate about understanding people — people who are committed to discovering what makes the lives of those in their community better. At Geocaching HQ, there is a whole team of folks responsible for making sure we’re building the right tools at the right time to meet the needs of geocachers around the world.

Meet the Product Team:

HQ's Product Team
These guys!

In January, we introduced you to Jayme, our User Insights Analyst at Geocaching HQ. Jayme collects feedback from geocachers about our apps and features by working with playtesters, coordinating surveys and even organizing special games designed to collect feedback. Recently, Jayme and the rest of her Product teammates — the people who work with departments across the company to determine the “what”, “how”, “when” and “why” for everything we build — took their insights-gathering on the road to the Going Caching Mega Event in Rome, Georgia.

We asked Jayme to share some of the Product Team’s takeaways from the experience with us:

Why did the Product Team decide to take a trip to Going Caching in Rome, Georgia?

The first User Insights Games — games designed to collect feedback from geocachers about our features —  were a success at the 2014 Geocaching Block Party, so we were looking for a way to expand the program and bring voices in from other regions and demographics. Geocaching’s Founder, Jeremy Irish, had attended the Going Caching Mega Event the previous year and thought it would be a great place to host the next User Insights Games because the event attracted players with a wide range of experience levels.

What were you trying to achieve by taking the User Insights Games on the road?

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Geocachers participate in User Insights Games at the Going Caching Mega Event.

We had a few different goals in mind for these games:

First, we wanted to invite geocachers to help us prioritize various community-suggested features for the Geocaching website and apps — and have fun playing a game too!

We also saw this as an opportunity to share what it’s like to be on the Geocaching Product Team with the community. When Geocaching HQ makes decisions on a new (or old) feature, we have to consider how people play the game differently across the world and across interests. That’s actually one of the coolest things about geocaching — it allows for you to play the game just the way you like it. But not everyone likes the same aspects of the game which can make deciding which features to focus on (and when) very challenging. All the geocachers who participated in these games were made “Honorary Product Team members” for the day, and were presented with some of the challenges we get to think about every day.

Finally, we wanted to spread the word about how we gather feedback about product and ways to stay involved. The games are just one step in the lengthy process of creating new geocaching features.

What are the steps to deciding on a new geocaching feature?

We usually start with a thread in the User Insights forums and follow up by sending out surveys to the global geocaching community. (Editor’s note: Make sure you’re signed up to receive the Geocaching Weekly Newsletter to be notified about these surveys.) We’ve played User Insights Games with folks at the Geocaching Block Party and Going Caching, as well as with geocachers at Mega-Events in Germany, Czech Republic, Spain, and Sweden. We’re hoping to bring these games to more geocachers around the world in 2016.

What happened at the User Insights Games at the Going Caching Mega Event?

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Geocachers play “Buy a Feature”.

We played with 75 different geocachers over a three day period in four separate two hour sessions. Whew! This time, groups were given a set amount of Monopoly money and were then asked to “purchase” various features — and making sure to consider geocachers of different skill level living in different places with different likes and dislikes. They purposefully were not given enough money to purchase everything (similar to how we have to consider resource constraints here at Geocaching HQ) so the groups had to collaborate and make some decisions together.

What will you do with your learning from the User Insights Games?

As members of the Product Team, it’s our job to be the voice of the geocaching community, based on the insights we gather at games like these. These learnings are shared with others at Geocaching HQ and are central to the product development process, ensuring that we design new features with many different geocachers’ interests in mind.

What was the highlight of the event for you?

It’s incredibly fun to watch a team of 5-7 geocachers collaborate on a specific topic. They may not agree on everything, but watching them get a bit vulnerable and share their passion for geocaching with each other (and us) is pretty special. Ideas are shared, listened to, and friends are made — all in a two hour whirlwind of fun and games.

One geocacher pulled me aside at one point and said, “I was wondering to myself why you don’t just ask us the questions and save the time, and then I thought that probably wouldn’t be any fun. I see what you guys did here. You tricked us into having fun AND giving you feedback. Well played.”

Anything else you’d like to add?

The whole team would like to give a HUGE thank you to:

  • The event organizers and their crew for working with us to bring User Insights Games to the Going Caching Mega Event. It was the first time we had taken our more formal, organized games on the road and, thanks to their awesome teamwork and planning, it was wildly successful.
  • The city of Rome, Georgia for donating the use of their beautiful ECO Center. We needed a large space to hold the sessions and the ECO Center was an amazing place to play for the week.
  • All the geocachers who shared two hours of their time with us. There were so many things to do and geocaches to find at this event, and we greatly appreciate that they made the choice to spend their valuable time with us!

Are you a geocacher? (If not, then you may be reading the wrong blog.) If yes, we want to hear from you! Take this survey to share your two cents on Challenge Caches and check out this blog post for other ways you can give your feedback.