It's amusing, but it's not actually very practical.
I would say there a loads of practical applications. For delivering products to the right place (not just the right "address"), ordering a taxi, being able to pin-point exactly where you are when you're in open countryside.
75% of countries don't have a proper addressing system. Lots of places are only known in local languages or dialects. Many developing countries are developing so fast, that traditional addresses just don't work.
I think it's a really clever solution to a problem that a lot of the world suffers from, but we don't see much, living in or near the world's greatest city.
The problem is if you get it slightly wrong, you end up a long way away. You get a great view of Greenwich from thing.digs.organs but if you forget the last word is a plural you end up on a Manchester back street. If you inadvertantly add an s at the end of the example you gave, you end up in Indiana! And that's before we get on to transcription errors leading to utterly invalid addresses. With the current system you can at least ensure you're in roughly the right area, and then use local knowledge to narrow it down further, but with this method you can't even narrow it down to a country.
The problem is if you get it slightly wrong, you end up a long way away. You get a great view of Greenwich from thing.digs.organs but if you forget the last word is a plural you end up on a Manchester back street. If you inadvertantly add an s at the end of the example you gave, you end up in Indiana! And that's before we get on to transcription errors leading to utterly invalid addresses. With the current system you can at least ensure you're in roughly the right area, and then use local knowledge to narrow it down further, but with this method you can't even narrow it down to a country.
But couldn't the same be said about phone numbers? If you get one of the digits slightly wrong, you end up with the wrong number. With this system, you only have to know your own three-word address to be found by anyone. What other system allows your location to be defined, wherever you are on the planet, with only three, easy-to-remember words?
I think it's clever. And I hope the guys behind this startup make a success of it.
What would happen if they opened it up, allowing people (or people with a right to the area) to purchase "domain names" for places? So, a three word domain for the Valley could be purchased? (e.g. get.roland.out)
What would happen if they opened it up, allowing people (or people with a right to the area) to purchase "domain names" for places? So, a three word domain for the Valley could be purchased? (e.g. get.roland.out)
What would happen? In short, they'd make a fortune!
But remember there are hundreds of locations that make up a big site like the Valley. For example, garage.stage.trip is only the 3m x 3m square that includes the centre spot. So there isn't one for the Valley as a whole. I have different addresses for my front door, back door and patio door; different addresses for my garage (car door and side door); an address for my shed...
The problem is if you get it slightly wrong, you end up a long way away. You get a great view of Greenwich from thing.digs.organs but if you forget the last word is a plural you end up on a Manchester back street. If you inadvertantly add an s at the end of the example you gave, you end up in Indiana! And that's before we get on to transcription errors leading to utterly invalid addresses. With the current system you can at least ensure you're in roughly the right area, and then use local knowledge to narrow it down further, but with this method you can't even narrow it down to a country.
But couldn't the same be said about phone numbers? If you get one of the digits slightly wrong, you end up with the wrong number. With this system, you only have to know your own three-word address to be found by anyone. What other system allows your location to be defined, wherever you are on the planet, with only three, easy-to-remember words?
I think it's clever. And I hope the guys behind this startup make a success of it.
Yes, but if I get my Mum's phone number slightly wrong I don't end up phoning Hong Kong. And it doesn't define your location, just your GPS co-ordinates - you're going to struggle to find someone based simply on them being at locked.policy.plans due to the fundamental issue of it completely ignoring the third dimension. (And again, if you've misheard the address as lock.policy.plans you end up in Nevada, and locked.policy.plan takes you to Virginia).
I like Lookout's description of this as DNS for GPS, because just like DNS if the servers are down (or you don't have access to them) you can't find anything. And just like the original principles of DNS at the very least it needs the concept of top level domains, or something analogous to telephone country codes.
The problem is if you get it slightly wrong, you end up a long way away. You get a great view of Greenwich from thing.digs.organs but if you forget the last word is a plural you end up on a Manchester back street. If you inadvertantly add an s at the end of the example you gave, you end up in Indiana! And that's before we get on to transcription errors leading to utterly invalid addresses. With the current system you can at least ensure you're in roughly the right area, and then use local knowledge to narrow it down further, but with this method you can't even narrow it down to a country.
But couldn't the same be said about phone numbers? If you get one of the digits slightly wrong, you end up with the wrong number. With this system, you only have to know your own three-word address to be found by anyone. What other system allows your location to be defined, wherever you are on the planet, with only three, easy-to-remember words?
I think it's clever. And I hope the guys behind this startup make a success of it.
Yes, but if I get my Mum's phone number slightly wrong I don't end up phoning Hong Kong. And it doesn't define your location, just your GPS co-ordinates - you're going to struggle to find someone based simply on them being at locked.policy.plans due to the fundamental issue of it completely ignoring the third dimension. (And again, if you've misheard the address as lock.policy.plans you end up in Nevada, and locked.policy.plan takes you to Virginia).
I like Lookout's description of this as DNS for GPS, because just like DNS if the servers are down (or you don't have access to them) you can't find anything. And just like the original principles of DNS at the very least it needs the concept of top level domains, or something analogous to telephone country codes.
Well. for a British start up to identify a problem that is suffered by 4bn people around the world and to come up with an industry-leading, robust, scaleable solution that makes money without charging the end-user is a good thing, in my opinion.
I don't see the analogy in the scenario of your Mum's phone number. If you get it wrong, you get it wrong, wherever the call terminates. It wouldn't matter if it's Hong Kong or Holland Park - if it's the wrong number, it's failed. To that extent phone numbers are no more reliable than three-word addresses. I also don't get what you're saying about the "third dimension". The three-word address resolves to a specific, two-dimensional, 3m x 3m square on the ground. Is the height above the ground important? The beauty of it is that it doesn't need "top level domains" or country codes. These are required because the underlying systems don't deliver sufficient numbers of addresses; and because the "locations" which need that type of address are growing in number year over year. What3Words has *already* mapped out every single location on the planet - there will never be any more places.
They deliberately ensure that similar-sounding addresses are *not* close to each other. So you know if you are delivering to a house in Canterbury and the three-word address you scribbled down is in Venezuela, you need to check. If you're the Philippines Red Cross and you're delivering emergency medical supplies, you make sure your destination is in the Philippines.
These guys have both online and offline solutions, so their system can be used without having internet or wireless access. You can download all the addresses onto a Smartphone. So, if you have the three-word address and the phone number and you're travelling in a part of the world with no wireless signal, only one of those is going to work.
And, with the deals they have already put in place - particularly in developing nations in Africa - it seems like they have a market. They have some deals with blue chip companies from Deutsche Bahn, to Domino's. They help deliver humanitarian aid. They work with emergency services.
It's also worth considering how useful the system can be in the light of the horrible disasters we've seen recently, including in Texas. Where buildings have been swept away, roads are under water, it's good to have another system to help direct aid.
My point about the phone country codes is that it _does_ matter if you get misrouted to Hong Kong rather than misrouted to Notting Hill because the former is going to be a much more expensive mistake than the latter given international dialing charges. Similarly if you're a manufacturer posting out your wares to a customer and you inadvertantly send it to Virginia rather than Canary Wharf, that's also going to be an expensive error. And height above ground is pretty damn important for delivery to anyone who lives in a flat or works in an office block where the mail isn't centrally handled.
The problem is, as an addressing scheme it isn't sufficient to uniquely identify every place that people need to be directed to (because of the height issue), while the random allocation of the codes means if you get the code slightly wrong you get the location wildly wrong, so you need to add additional context to make sure you're getting it right. This might be less of an issue if they'd been more rigorous about the rules for which words were allowed or not, so words that are easily misheard or misread for each other would be restricted (so you could have "form" or "from" allowed but not both). The randomness also means you're absolutely stuffed if your system goes down for any reason, as you've no way of knowing if you're in roughly the right area from local signage or asking a passer-by.
My point about the phone country codes is that it _does_ matter if you get misrouted to Hong Kong rather than misrouted to Notting Hill because the former is going to be a much more expensive mistake than the latter given international dialing charges. Similarly if you're a manufacturer posting out your wares to a customer and you inadvertantly send it to Virginia rather than Canary Wharf, that's also going to be an expensive error. And height above ground is pretty damn important for delivery to anyone who lives in a flat or works in an office block where the mail isn't centrally handled.
The problem is, as an addressing scheme it isn't sufficient to uniquely identify every place that people need to be directed to (because of the height issue), while the random allocation of the codes means if you get the code slightly wrong you get the location wildly wrong, so you need to add additional context to make sure you're getting it right. This might be less of an issue if they'd been more rigorous about the rules for which words were allowed or not, so words that are easily misheard or misread for each other would be restricted (so you could have "form" or "from" allowed but not both). The randomness also means you're absolutely stuffed if your system goes down for any reason, as you've no way of knowing if you're in roughly the right area from local signage or asking a passer-by.
Fair enough.
I just don't think any of those points are valid. And I guess the two proofs of that are the number of blue-chip deals they have in place; and the fact they don't appear to have competitors looking at solving those issues.
I guess they're looking to secure deals from businesses who know which countries they are dealing with and need a reliable means of identifying locations *within* that country; and who can overcome any legacy issues around flat numbers.
Comments
75% of countries don't have a proper addressing system. Lots of places are only known in local languages or dialects. Many developing countries are developing so fast, that traditional addresses just don't work.
I think it's a really clever solution to a problem that a lot of the world suffers from, but we don't see much, living in or near the world's greatest city.
Just an algorithm that allocates three words to a 3m x 3m plot.
I think it's clever. And I hope the guys behind this startup make a success of it.
But remember there are hundreds of locations that make up a big site like the Valley. For example, garage.stage.trip is only the 3m x 3m square that includes the centre spot. So there isn't one for the Valley as a whole. I have different addresses for my front door, back door and patio door; different addresses for my garage (car door and side door); an address for my shed...
https://map.what3words.com/attend.gates.edit
I like Lookout's description of this as DNS for GPS, because just like DNS if the servers are down (or you don't have access to them) you can't find anything. And just like the original principles of DNS at the very least it needs the concept of top level domains, or something analogous to telephone country codes.
I don't see the analogy in the scenario of your Mum's phone number. If you get it wrong, you get it wrong, wherever the call terminates. It wouldn't matter if it's Hong Kong or Holland Park - if it's the wrong number, it's failed. To that extent phone numbers are no more reliable than three-word addresses. I also don't get what you're saying about the "third dimension". The three-word address resolves to a specific, two-dimensional, 3m x 3m square on the ground. Is the height above the ground important? The beauty of it is that it doesn't need "top level domains" or country codes. These are required because the underlying systems don't deliver sufficient numbers of addresses; and because the "locations" which need that type of address are growing in number year over year. What3Words has *already* mapped out every single location on the planet - there will never be any more places.
They deliberately ensure that similar-sounding addresses are *not* close to each other. So you know if you are delivering to a house in Canterbury and the three-word address you scribbled down is in Venezuela, you need to check. If you're the Philippines Red Cross and you're delivering emergency medical supplies, you make sure your destination is in the Philippines.
These guys have both online and offline solutions, so their system can be used without having internet or wireless access. You can download all the addresses onto a Smartphone. So, if you have the three-word address and the phone number and you're travelling in a part of the world with no wireless signal, only one of those is going to work.
And, with the deals they have already put in place - particularly in developing nations in Africa - it seems like they have a market. They have some deals with blue chip companies from Deutsche Bahn, to Domino's. They help deliver humanitarian aid. They work with emergency services.
It's also worth considering how useful the system can be in the light of the horrible disasters we've seen recently, including in Texas. Where buildings have been swept away, roads are under water, it's good to have another system to help direct aid.
The problem is, as an addressing scheme it isn't sufficient to uniquely identify every place that people need to be directed to (because of the height issue), while the random allocation of the codes means if you get the code slightly wrong you get the location wildly wrong, so you need to add additional context to make sure you're getting it right. This might be less of an issue if they'd been more rigorous about the rules for which words were allowed or not, so words that are easily misheard or misread for each other would be restricted (so you could have "form" or "from" allowed but not both). The randomness also means you're absolutely stuffed if your system goes down for any reason, as you've no way of knowing if you're in roughly the right area from local signage or asking a passer-by.
I just don't think any of those points are valid. And I guess the two proofs of that are the number of blue-chip deals they have in place; and the fact they don't appear to have competitors looking at solving those issues.
I guess they're looking to secure deals from businesses who know which countries they are dealing with and need a reliable means of identifying locations *within* that country; and who can overcome any legacy issues around flat numbers.