Geocaching A Better Form Of Media - 1600 Words

â€Å"Geocaching a Better Form of Media† If you do not have the latest iPhone with accounts in the most popular apps you are the odd one out these days. Phones are not phones anymore; they are capable of too many things to be just a phone. Now you can take out your phone and know exactly where you are in the world, live stream what you are doing at this exact moment, the possibilities are almost endless. One of the best apps I’ve seen take advantage of what the phone can do is the Geocaching app. Geocaching is able to use the phone to help the user find their cache, and as media changes this app has been able to not only stay relevant but begin to flourish. Geocaching is a relevant app because it unites the paradoxes of media, is a good†¦show more content†¦A website developer named Jeremy Irish stumbled upon Teague’s website and decided to give this treasure hunt a try. After Irish’s thrill of finding his first cache he decided to start a hobby website for the activity; with the help of Teague the Geocaching website was launched on September 2, 2002 with only 75 caches known in the world. Geocaching was officially created in 2002 but began in 2000, the transition period between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0. Its concept using old media like websites and web browsers and then quickly transitioning to new media with online collaboration and mobile Internet access. Because Geocaching was created in this transitional time period it was able to blend the paradoxes of the media David Thorburn introduces in â€Å"Web of Paradox†. The first paradox is joining vs. isolation, in which media is seen as a tool to join people together but is also seen as a tool that isolates its users. Since Geocaching relies on its users to keep creating new caches and update on ones already created the users are united, helping each other out. Yet geocaching could be perceived as isolating as well because when these caches are hidden in public most bystanders do not realize what is happening. The next paradox is virtual vs. actual, where media leads its user into believing the media is reality or people view the media as only virtual, that there is