Time to fork to Consumer version?

[Ken Gullins]

With the advent of Quick Start and Check Sites it's now possible for amateur non-orienteering "consumers" (I need a better name for this!) to make their own routes for recreational use.
It could evolve along a different path from MapRun without the constraints of powerful Orienteering methods and traditional  O tools.

Possible issues:
- UI could more resemble a traditional exercise app, like Strava, etc
- could be more slanted toward social, rewards, goals, exploring, training, etc.. and less toward O's roots of racing with a map
- could have a different business model and income stream .. (although I have no idea what the current one is!)

To be clear, I'm not unhappy with the current arrangement of "piggybacking" on the O community's expertise. On the contrary I think it's tremendously helpful and supportive. But I just thought I'd pose the question for discussion. Is the time right to split off? Is it premature? Is there enough interest?

[epeesharkey]

Interesting points Ken Gullins.

Some other things i have done with Maprun other than orienteering events:

- Made an Advent window walk around our village. (36 controls in a 'scatter' event, since 12 days had 2 windows there were more than 24). The number for each control was the 'day' of the window with +50 for second windows.

- Made a London Circle Line cycle challenge - placing a control at a convenient place near an entrance to each of the ~30 stops on the Circle Line underground. I did this for a bike challenge this summer. It was a blast and I'm going to do it again as soon as the CV-19/Weather etc lets up. Having the app on the Garmin phone made for easy punching.

- Made a 'treasure hunt' for work colleagues at the office park where we (used to) work together. We actually did have an office day in October, I ended by using a paper-based version of the event, since there were not many people and some are not too 'techie'. I will save the Maprun for another day.

So there are many other uses as you say. On the other hand I don't think they have really many income streams.

[glyders]

I was thinking about how nice it would be to include rewards, especially for our juniors. Things like 25, 50, 200 controls found badges, finished 5 courses badge, etc. Nice to see someone else with a similar idea. Even better if the could label the TD of courses so they could distinguish on the badges.