Waymarking - The next hot GPS game?

Have you heard of waymarking, the new GPS game from Groundspeak, the folks behind geocaching.com? Waymarking could be described as a more urban friendly geocaching, or even geocaching with a social network twist.

Waymarking.com describes a waymark as "a physical location on the planet marked by coordinates (latitude/longitude) and contains unique information defined within its waymark category. An outdoor maze waymark category, for example, could contain information like price of admission and days of operation..." And their category list is massive, including everything from off-leash dog parks to farmers markets to hot springs.

Waymarking grew out of the geocaching trend of creating "virtual caches" -- where there was no physical cache to discover. As a matter of fact, with the advent of waymarking.com, no new virtual caches can be listed at geocaching.com.

A recent article in the Tacoma News Tribune explores waymarking in great detail, including info on the social aspects of the game...

One of the most popular waymarks goes beyond asking players to simply find a type of object. To get credit for finding the waymark called “Where’s in a Name?” players need help.

Players convert their name into GPS coordinates by assigning each letter a number based on a telephone keypad. The player then must find another player who will go to that location and e-mail a photo of them with their GPS handset.

While this sometimes requires looking for a waymarking partner on the other side of the world, Janell Brown’s name led her to Oregon, where a friend recorded her spot.

For more information, check out Waymarking.com's FAQ page.

Comments

[Multiplayer]

Have a look at Tourality (http://tourality.com) - a multiplayer gps game with a strong community aspect. Currently available in Europe.

[MMORPG]

Check out Virtualpunk (http://www.virtualpunk.com) it's a mmorpg with the whole world as playground. Monsters, loot, quests and NPCs. No geographical limits!

[Rich Owings]

Looks cool. Thanks for sharing.