Archive for August, 2014

August 7, 2014

Munzee Player of the Week: Louise Gibson (geoibsons)

Munzee has become so much more than a scavenger hunt. It’s become a collection race, a reason to get outside and each month it even becomes war. For those that participate in Clan Wars, you devote hours and days to capping, deploying and doing whatever else CoachV demands. Munzee’s third Birthday this July was no different and after a long month of activity the Plankers Clan came out on top. A clan is only as good as their leader though, so read on to learn a bit about Louise Gibson (geoibsons) who helped lead her clan to victory. 

OlympicsWho are you?
I am geoibsons, real name Louise Gibson. A 36 year old Londoner, I’m married and Mummy to 2 little boys.

Where in the world do you live?
I live in a town called Marlow, west of London, England where I moved from last year. If you look at the Munzee Map I think it’s pretty obvious a Munzer lives there!

BikeHow long have you played Munzee?
I discovered Munzee when it was a 2 month old baby – my account is about 1080 days old. I managed to keep the obsession at bay until the Clan Wars though. My best Munzee chum Rodz asked me to be a member of the London Clan and that was it. I was in. All his Munzees started getting capped by a nutcase wielding a baby in a buggy, this proved handy for a bit of extra height at times (standing on the buggy or lifting the baby and asking him to grab stuff, not standing on the baby obvs). Unfortunately we struggled to keep the London Clan going due to lack of local Munzers, so we went nuts for a couple of months, then sailed off as Pirates for another couple of months. A few of us then jumped ship to plan some world domination. We were briefly another chiming clan, but then became a bunch of Plankers. Turned out we were good at Planking, we won the war didn’t we?! I’d like to give a big shout out to my fellow Plankers!

Vallee Blanche

How did you find Munzee?
I heard about it through my caching chums. The first Munzee I found was called Dorset’s First, I was with my Uncle Griff and it was pretty much the only one on the South Coast of England, which is now saturated! I’m from a serious Munzee family, we pretty much all do it! My parents (Geogarley), my Aunts and Uncles (Georiffles and Baconybits), my sister (geosian) and my cousins (DarthXrisFaerieDee). Family parties are awesome, deploy a munzee and boom, instant caps! My non Munzeeing brother thinks I’m a massive douche bag and I test my husband’s patience fairly regularly though!

What do you enjoy most about Munzee?
Munzee taps into my competitive and geeky side. I like getting outdoors, finding treasure and I feel like I’m a member of a secret club haha. I love the social side that has developed over the last year or so too since I’ve started hosting events in London and love the banter on Facebook. It does sometimes bring out the worst in me though… I think POTW might also stand for Pest Of The Week. I must admit to emailing the whole list of Cologne Event attendees to see if any who didn’t have a clan wanted to join my world domination clan! I also push my virtual field spreadsheets on anyone who’ll listen. It’s worth it though, London is a serious hot spot now and I love my other baby, the virtual Union Jack arrow pointing down at Regent’s Park, Rodz helped me create it and it looks awesome. Relentless doesn’t cover it either – even with over a 300k lead on Cologne with less than 12 hours to go til the end of the clan war I went down to the South Coast of England and stayed up all night, poised to cap to ensure GOLD!

CologneWhat is on your wish list?
Well I wish every month was as amazing at July 2014! The European Event in Cologne was fantastic. I doubled my score and got over 200k for the Plankers! I met wonderful players and loved hanging out with Rob and Daniel from MHQ. Very nice, very heiß.

I’d like the ability to make in-app purchases (even if you have to pre-load credit or something), I’d like FitBit badges, awards for Clan Winners – especially 3rd Birthday Clan Winners! Once my POTW Munzee Store discount and unlimited blast caps kicks in I’ll be a happy girl haha. I also wish there were more London players.

Tell us about yourself!
So as I’ve said, I’m competitive, a bit geeky and social. I love my family and my friends. I’m as happy drinking cocktails with the girls as I am sinking 10 beers with the boys. I’m a messer, a selfie poser and I’m quite girly. I love shopping, shoes, bags and nail polish, but I’m no easy touch, I like going out on my bike and the Mum’s race at Sports Day very, very seriously hahaha.

Other hobbies include;
I’m pretty sporty. I am into road cycling in a big way. I took it up last year after constant injuries from marathon running. Turns out I’m ok at it. I’m proud to hold 6 Queen of the Mountain titles from various hills around UK and I’m competing in RideLondon next weekend, which is a 100 mile race along the London 2012 Olympic Road Race route. I also love snowboarding. I think Chamonix in France is my spiritual home. The mountains are beautiful and La Vallée Blanche is the most exhilarating day you’ll ever have on a snowboard. Anyway, I’ve cycled 80 miles today, I need some chocolate and a glass or 2 of red wine….Thank you so much to those who nominated me and thank you MHQ for recognizing me. I love you all and I love Munzee xxxxx

Louise was kind enough to share her social, so cap away!

Social Poser

 

If you know a player that should be nominated for Munzee Player of the Week, shoot us a message at iLoveYou@Munzee.com and let us know just why this person is outstanding in the global Munzee community!

-Please note, this is a super active campaign. We may not be able to get back to everyone, but you’re helping to grow the list of amazing people in the Munzee community!

August 5, 2014

Podcast Episode 24: Matt’s back, the post-birthday blues, and Clan warfare

In this episode of the podcast, we share some #ScottThoughts, discuss this month’s clan wars and praise the higher powers that Matt is back to save the podcast. We also say goodbye to a huge part of Munzee, but look forward to the great things ahead.

This week’s topics:

1.  Weekend Munzee activity:  How did Munzee make it’s way into your weekend?

2.   Keep contributing to #ScottThoughts, #Munzee and #MunzeeFound, they really brighten our day!

3.  Winners from the Final FiestaThree celebration!  This might just help your post-birthday blues, here’s the winners from the final cap/deploy celebration.  Rob will contact everyone over the next week or so.  You can also message us at podcast@munzee.com

CAPTURES:

  • polkajen
  • Mooreule
  • Vlaju
  • jratzlaf
  • Cherrypi
  • ralphloewe
  • Jigge
  • Minerva123
  • mutti
  • Muaddib

DEPLOYS:

  • huggyd1
  • geeijo
  • Rongylab2
  • RuneMorgan
  • richspeer
  • Pardlerum
  • Baggio
  • Dixzon
  • mueckenfett
  • schmitzfam4

4.  The Munzee Marketplace is coming along swimmingly, Dylan and TJ put up some of the final walls within the structure, and Dylan’s carpentry skills have been put to great use with our reclaimed wood and rustic look within the marketplace.  Omi’s painting the town with color…Okay, actually she’s staining and sealing some of the final touches for the place, and TJ’s receiving some of the awesome speciality teas, coffees, and treats we’ll be serving at the marketplace.

5.  Clans!  We’ve covered clans during the “early podcast” days, but we provide a refresher to all our new players and players that want to enter the arena of clan competition.  Premium perks include the ability to start your own clan, another reason to go sign up for premium membership!

6.  We’re sending Rob off to another event! This time Rob will be at World’s Collide in Seattle on August 15th.  Check it out here:  http://calendar.munzee.com/MUNZGEOSEATTLE/ -Supposedly this is a pre-mega deal here, folks.  Show up and represent with Team Munzee!

7.  LeftOvers4Dinner signs off! Omi has taken a media position in the Southwest, and we all wish her well! Don’t be sad folks, #omigiggles and #Munzeefound are always within the hearts of the Munzee community.  It’s sad to see the podcaster go, but it’s great to see her grow!  Keep an eye on #wheresOmi, we’re sure there’s a Munzee deployed with every one of her adventures.

To check past, present and future Munzee Podcasts, visit www.munzeepodcast.com.

August 4, 2014

Meet Munzee Munday: Scott Foster

Here at Munzee we’re constantly encouraging our players to meet and greet and build the personal relationships that make this game so great. Over the next few weeks we’ll be showcasing members of Team Munzee so our players can get to know us a bit better. So each Munday (see what we did there?) check in to see a new member of Team Munzee and you decide if you trust the game in our hands. This week we take a peak behind the veil at co-founder Scott Foster!

-4Name and Title:
Scott Foster, Co-Founder/VP of Technology

Where are you from?
I am from San Rafael, California, USA which is on the North side of the Golden Gate Bridge, south being the beautiful city of San Francisco. I lived there until I was 15 and then moved to Texas with my mom and step-dad. We moved in the middle of July and I would call my friends back in California and say “You wouldn’t believe this place. It’s 2am and it’s still 102F outside.” I still hate the heat. HATE IT.

Tell us about yourself:
About me? Let’s step back a bit …

I have always been interested in programming. I remember being fascinated with computers as a child. I feel like this is very cliché, but I loved being able to type something into the keyboard and things would appear. My dad bought me a C++ book when I was 7 and I didn’t understand a single word of it, but I felt much smarter that I had that book. “Look at me, I’m a REAL programmer!” I remember my house had two phone lines and two computers. So one day I played Warcraft 2 with my friend in the other room via dialup (56k baud modem) and was so amazed how that worked. I lost the game, but it was amazing how it was possible that I could play a game with somebody in the other room. It almost felt like Bell talking into the phone to Watson for the first time, “Mr. Watson – Come here – I want to see you.” … ah, something that is so taken for granted nowadays.

In middle school, I learned Hypercard and would make the teachers impressed that I could make a button on the screen that when you click it, a sound would play on the computer. The girls in my class were not as impressed as my teachers (surprising, I know). My school also had a website that they had no idea what to do with, so I asked if I could play with it – and I thought it was so cool that I could make changes to a file called index.html and people all over the world would see it. Things like that were always a delight.

Once I moved to Texas at 15, it was time to grow up. I just wanted to learn programming and make my 7 year old self proud. Once I graduated from high school and tried a few attempts at college, I decided to join the United States Air Force because they were willing to teach me programming, or so I thought. Basic training was “fun” as was technical training school. I kept asking when I was going to go learn real programming. I got stationed at RAF Lakenheath, England and was excited to learn … which I never did. I bought a PHP book which, like when I was young, I thought that it made me a real programmer. I learned the basics, created a website, and just had fun. As the great historian band Bone Thugs-n-Harmony once said, “You know nothing come easy, you gotta try real, real hard, I tried hard…but I guess I gotta try harder.”

-3I got out of the USAF after 2.5 years because the military was done relying on people to do programming and switched to using companies. I then moved back to Texas where I married my high school sweetheart, got my college degree at University of Texas at Dallas in Management Information Systems, and my wife and I moved to Philadelphia, PA to start our lives. I worked for a few companies, learned a lot about real programming, and then one day got a Facebook message from Aaron talking about this game he thought about called Munzee which has all lead to this.

Now, my life is not completely boring. I love all kinds of things. I have a Barry Bonds jersey in my closet. I will fight to the death at the notion that he ever did steroids. I also still love playing video games – Final Fantasy and Counterstrike: Global Offensive are the two that I play the most. I also enjoy nature, bike riding, 90’s west coast rap music, and hanging out with my family. A wife and 3 kids keep me very busy outside of work, but I love it.

-2How long have you worked for Munzee?
I have been around since the almost beginning of Munzee, but have only been working on it full time for about 1.5 years. Most people don’t know, but the first year when we created Munzee… nobody got paid. Everybody thought the idea was stupid, but we wanted to prove them wrong. All the money we earned, which wasn’t much, went back towards the servers or things to grow the game. Myself, along with the three other founders, would sit on Skype from about 8pm – midnight every night coming up with what Munzee was. We all had families and full time jobs so it was all done on the side because players, like you, kept playing. There were many debates on things like what it’s called when you scan a munzee. Everybody now knows it’s called capturing, but back then we had to come up with the terminology.

How did you come up with Munzee?
I actually did not come up with Munzee. Aaron approached me with some ideas he had along with mockups of the website. When I moved back to Texas, the 4 founders met on a cold February 2011 evening at a Mexican restaurant where we all agreed to start Munzee. The rest is history.

-1What do you enjoy most about Munzee?
The two things I love most are the abilities to prove to myself that I am a real programmer, that my 7 year old self would be proud of, and talking to people all over the world. Most people just go to work, do their job, think the work that they do doesn’t matter to anyone, and go home. Not me. My job is to make sure there is enough coal in the Munzee engine so that people can use it and Rob can steer where the boat needs to go. I have met a lot of interesting people via Munzee and realize that people from all over the world have the same hopes, fears, doubts, inspirations, and goals.

Famous last words?

I got 3 quotes. Dylan is mad that I couldn’t just pick one.

“I want to put a ding in the universe.” – Steve Jobs
“Everyone has a plan ’till they get punched in the mouth. ” – Mike Tyson
“When my time on earth is gone, and my activities here are passed, I want them to bury me upside down, and my critics can kiss my…” – Bobby Knight