# What3Words Going Mainstream?



## Lovacott (17 Jul 2021)

I know the What3Words app is somewhat sneered at by traditional geo location users, but lately, I have seen more and more people using it.

The main attraction seems to be its level of accuracy over traditional postcode methods of sat nav destination setting and the simplicity of use.

I've started using it and TBH, I find it brilliant and you could teach a two year old to use it in ten seconds.

It's level of simplicity and novel approach to location naming, will take it into mainstream use.

It's one hell of a contrast to the days when I was was working for a utility in London trying to pinpoint my location on an OS map.

Sure, What3Words is an attempt to monetize mapping but isn't that exactly what Google did with Google Maps?


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## Bonefish Blues (17 Jul 2021)

I think it's inspired.

As you say, there are vehement debates from those who use different methods


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## Milkfloat (17 Jul 2021)

They are certainly advertising heavily, but I am not sure how mainstream it is. I tried using it after dialling 999 for an ambulance and the ambulance service I got put through to could not use it. Although to be fair, the ambulance did not make it to me when I gave them an exact OS location, I had to go running down the road in cleats to find them very lost. There are a few major issues with W3W. 
1. Because of their commercial bent you cannot download the database of words. Therefore if you don’t have a phone signal you cannot get a location. This means that if you have an injured party where there is no signal, you cannot get a the words and then hike out to where you get a signal and pass the location on. 
2. They use plurals in different places around the world, so for example sausages may be in the UK, but sausage is in Australia, you could be sending emergency services to completely the wrong area. 
3. The words in different languages are often very archaic, my French colleagues report that the words used are not words they have ever heard of, this means mistakes can be made. 
4. As you may have worked out by number 3, there are multiple sets of words for each location in the world, a set for each supported language. 
5. because it is commercial, emergency services have to pay a pretty high fee to use the system, money that could be well spent elsewhere.


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## annedonnelly (17 Jul 2021)

I can certainly see the attraction but I'm a bit cautious after the person I was with didn't understand and couldn't pronounce one of the three words that popped up. He was a lot older than two but his level of literacy meant that the word was unfamiliar to him. I'm not saying that he'd be any better with a postcode or a grid ref but we just need to be aware that things we find simple aren't accessible to everyone.


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## midlife (17 Jul 2021)

I guess you have seen some of the smutty ones


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## twentysix by twentyfive (17 Jul 2021)

midlife said:


> I guess you have seen some of the smutty ones


Sounds like a job for @Fnaar


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## aferris2 (17 Jul 2021)

Milkfloat said:


> Therefore if you don’t have a phone signal you cannot get a location.


No. You can get a location without a phone signal. Did it many times in Australia.


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## twentysix by twentyfive (17 Jul 2021)

Milkfloat said:


> the ambulance service I got put through to could not use it.


Horses for courses I suspect but the paramedic in the ambulance I got picked up in suggested using it to me.

@Milkfloat has some good points. Apparently some of those singles/plurals can be several kms apart too which may be quite a way by road. Australia is easily filtered out but not the latter.


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## Milkfloat (17 Jul 2021)

aferris2 said:


> No. You can get a location without a phone signal. Did it many times in Australia.


Ahh great, I just looked it up, they added that capability just over a year ago. That fixes a very big negative.


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## weareHKR (17 Jul 2021)

W3W How it works!


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## aferris2 (17 Jul 2021)

My wife used W3W when she had to call Green Flag out. She started off saying which parade of shops and the town she was at, but they couldn't work out where she was. Then she suggested W3W to which the reply was "That's great. Be with you in 15 minutes"


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## oldwheels (17 Jul 2021)

annedonnelly said:


> I can certainly see the attraction but I'm a bit cautious after the person I was with didn't understand and couldn't pronounce one of the three words that popped up. He was a lot older than two but his level of literacy meant that the word was unfamiliar to him. I'm not saying that he'd be any better with a postcode or a grid ref but we just need to be aware that things we find simple aren't accessible to everyone.


Depends on where you live perhaps how necessary it is. In my case there can be no doubt of my home location by post code and street number.
We were given a bit of wood with W3W by some car club and I think most people dumped them as just some publicity stunt. I have tried the one I was given and could not find the correct location and there appeared to be multiple choices for my home address.
I would not like to rely on it for myself anyway. It is also a commercial venture and not entirely altruistic.


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## Lovacott (17 Jul 2021)

midlife said:


> I guess you have seen some of the smutty ones


I spent a good bit of yesterday walking around our site looking for smutty word combinations.

Found plenty.

This is why it will find itself in mainstream use.


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## Drago (17 Jul 2021)

It never recekved universal acclaim from the emrgency services and SAR teams, and those that did are starting to drop it for a couple of reasons. Ultimately it does nothing that a lat and long doesn't, and occasionally doesn't even do that. I certainly don't use it.


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## Lovacott (17 Jul 2021)

oldwheels said:


> Depends on where you live perhaps how necessary it is.


Postcode and house number takes you bang on to my front door but where I work, the postcode takes you half a mile away.

We often have artics delivering to us who overshoot the entrance and have to travel on for 15 miles before they can turn around and come back.

We started using our W3W address after being asked for it by a number of hauliers planning to do drops to us.

It's very simple to use.


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## Lovacott (17 Jul 2021)

Drago said:


> It never recekved universal acclaim from the emrgency services and SAR teams, and those that did are starting to drop it for a couple of reasons. Ultimately it does nothing that a lat and long doesn't, and occasionally doesn't even do that. I certainly don't use it.


All of the navigation platforms can locate with a Lat Long input but for the average occasional user, it's gobblygook and they just want to type in envelope stuff like house number and street name.

Logo.Mermaids.Cemented is a lot easier to remember than 51.078, -4.20726

The beauty of the W3W platform and the current advertising campaign, is that it tempts people to download the free app just to find out what three words have been assigned to their front room.

People who wouldn't normally use GPS will be tempted to use GPS.


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## PaulSB (17 Jul 2021)

The problem is that it simply isn't very accurate which makes it useless. It may well work for 99.9% of the time but when it's wrong? My faith in W3W has been lost in the time it takes to read this thread.

Input the name of my village and it is shown on the satellite image as in a field on the edge of a small group of trees. I know exactly where this location is - 10-15 minutes walk from the village, through a farmyard, through a farm gate and over a stile. Google maps does exactly the same!!

W3W location shows me as two doors down in a neighbour's house. Google maps shows me sat outside my house - which I am.

Input my post code and house number to Google maps and it puts me right outside the house.


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## oldwheels (17 Jul 2021)

Lovacott said:


> Postcode and house number takes you bang on to my front door but where I work, the postcode takes you half a mile away.
> 
> We often have artics delivering to us who overshoot the entrance and have to travel on for 15 miles before they can turn around and come back.
> 
> ...


Some older software has a glitch which shows my address by postcode in a different street. Newer versions seem to have corrected this. I live in a relatively small community so my address is easily found and I know from experience that ambulances have had no problem finding my address without even postcode. The police on one occasion delivered a letter for somebody else to me as they had not upgraded the software. 
This glitch may be why your work deliveries are being misled.


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## winjim (17 Jul 2021)

weareHKR said:


> W3W How it works!


That doesn't tell you how it works though, which I think is the major issue that people have with it.


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## Fnaar (17 Jul 2021)

twentysix by twentyfive said:


> Sounds like a job for @Fnaar


My good friend Miss Goodbody lives at massage/bumps/heavenly*
*😄😄😄 Not really, I made it up for comic effect, but there actually IS one, in Nevada 😄😄😄


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## newfhouse (17 Jul 2021)

Which three words, surely?


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## Lovacott (17 Jul 2021)

PaulSB said:


> The problem is that it simply isn't very accurate which makes it useless. It may well work for 99.9% of the time but when it's wrong? My faith in W3W has been lost in the time it takes to read this thread.
> 
> Input the name of my village and it is shown on the satellite image as in a field on the edge of a small group of trees. I know exactly where this location is - 10-15 minutes walk from the village, through a farmyard, through a farm gate and over a stile. Google maps does exactly the same!!
> 
> ...


I think you are missing the point.

If you download the app and pin where you are standing, you will get three words which describe the 3x3m block you are standing in.

If you then pass this location onto someone else, they can navigate to that same 3 x 3m square with 100% accuracy.

The only time it can go wrong is when the three words spoken are not the three words heard.

Cats.Onion.Chair becomes Cat.Onions.Chair (Wallnut Street Illionois becomes the middle of the Colorado River in Bullshead Arizona).


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## PaulSB (17 Jul 2021)

I don't have much to do today. Out of sheer devilment I have just searched for three more local villages.

Village 1 - middle of a field
Village 2 - in a lodge*
Village 3 - spot on, bang in the centre

* a lodge here is a body of water originally stored for use in a local mill.

After testing four villages including mine I have one correct and three wrong. 25% accuracy is not a great result.


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## PaulSB (17 Jul 2021)

Lovacott said:


> I think you are missing the point.
> 
> If you download the app and pin where you are standing, you will get three words which describe the 3x3m block you are standing in.
> 
> ...


I understand this but it doesn't address the point of accuracy. I checked four locations - it got one correct.


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## Lovacott (17 Jul 2021)

winjim said:


> That doesn't tell you how it works though, which I think is the major issue that people have with it.


It isn't new mapping technology or anything like that.

It's just a simple way of giving a location an easy to remember address other than postal addresses which can be pretty loose at times (like new estate builds which are in the process of being built but don't officially exist yet).

The three words are assigned to a fixed geographic location 3m x 3m and are not reliant on postcodes or house names. 

It's no different to typing in a Lat Long location but it's probably easier to remember and it's a bit more fun.

Just for a laugh, download the app and have a walk around your house and see what three words describe each room. I did my dads house today and wobbly.teeth were the first two words which came up. 

How did they know?


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## glasgowcyclist (17 Jul 2021)

Lovacott said:


> Logo.Mermaids.Cemented is a lot easier to remember than 51.078, -4.20726



I think if they removed the plurals it would be better. Your example might be picked up as logo.mermaid.cemented, which is in the middle of Brazil, or logos.mermaids.cemented, which is in South Australia and no use when you need assistance in Bideford.

(edited to fix a typo)


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## Dag Hammar (17 Jul 2021)

By pure coincidence I did a test of W3W at 11:16 this morning, which is before this thread was started and here is my positive experience. I am on ‘pay as you go‘ on my mobile so have no internet on the phone when out in the open.
I opened the W3W app on my phone and it showed a marker to indicate where I was standing but no background showing any of the squares nor roads/paths so nothing for me to correlate to. I took a screenshot of it so that when I arrived home I could then enter the specific three words onto my iPad which also has the app.
Once back home I did that, entering the 3 words on my iPad that were shown on the screenshot of my phone. It accurately brought up and displayed the precise position of where I was standing earlier today.
Yes, I’m a fan of W3W.


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## winjim (17 Jul 2021)

Lovacott said:


> It isn't new mapping technology or anything like that.
> 
> It's just a simple way of giving a location an easy to remember address other than postal addresses which can be pretty loose at times (like new estate builds which are in the process of being built but don't officially exist yet).
> 
> ...


I know what it is and how to use it, I don't know how it works.


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## Lovacott (17 Jul 2021)

PaulSB said:


> I understand this but it doesn't address the point of accuracy. I checked four locations - it got one correct.


You've lost me there to be honest?

What is it that you are checking?

If you use the satellite view option on their website and navigate to your 6'x3' garden shed, it will give you three words.

If you write down those three words and use a completely different computer to look them up a week later, it will take you back to exactly the same garden shed.

All W3W is doing is substituting simple groups of words for complex Lat Long numbers. They are not doing the mapping.


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## Lovacott (17 Jul 2021)

winjim said:


> I know what it is and how to use it, I don't know how it works.


It's just a simplified indexing method for using existing mapping technology.

Every dot on the planet has a Lat Long reference and all they've done is assign three words to each dot down to an accuracy of 3m x 3m.

If you choose to navigate using W3W, it opens your preferred navigation platform and inputs the Lat Long garnered from the three words you have input.


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## biggs682 (17 Jul 2021)

A family friend collapsed in a field a while back , the person who found her was a paramedic and he got an ambulance crew to her using the app


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## Lovacott (17 Jul 2021)

glasgowcyclist said:


> I think if they removed the plurals it would be better. Your example might be picked up as logo.mermaid.cemented, which is in the middle of Brazil, or logos.mermaids.cemented, which is in South Australia and no use when you need assistance in Bideford.
> (edited to fix a typo)


The local emergency services have been pushing W3W in the farming community recently and the plural thing has been raised.

However, nobody in South Australia or Brazil is going to be calling Bideford Fire Brigade so those fears were quickly assuaged.


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## winjim (17 Jul 2021)

Lovacott said:


> The only time it can go wrong is when the three words spoken are not the three words heard.
> 
> Cats.Onion.Chair becomes Cat.Onions.Chair (Wallnut Street Illionois becomes the middle of the Colorado River in Bullshead Arizona).





glasgowcyclist said:


> I think if they removed the plurals it would be better. Your example might be picked up as logo.mermaid.cemented, which is in the middle of Brazil, or logos.mermaids.cemented, which is in South Australia and no use when you need assistance in Bideford.
> 
> (edited to fix a typo)


Not much good if you need to call help and your teeth have been knocked out, or you've bitten your tongue, or been punched in the face, or had a drink, or even if you just have a lisp or something.


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## Edwardoka (17 Jul 2021)

It's not useless but it has many flaws, it's not nearly as clever as they think, as it's a closed ecosystem the people who use it are unable to address the issues.

Homophones and plurals/words that end or begin with sibilants exist within their database, which undermines a lot of what they're trying to achieve.
It would have been trivial for them to use one of the many pre-existing algorithms that determine phonetic similarity to prune their wordlists, but this simple task was apparently beyond them.


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## Edwardoka (17 Jul 2021)

Lovacott said:


> The local emergency services have been pushing W3W in the farming community recently and the plural thing has been raised.
> 
> However, nobody in South Australia or Brazil is going to be calling Bideford Fire Brigade so those fears were quickly assuaged.


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## winjim (17 Jul 2021)

Lovacott said:


> It's just a simplified indexing method for using existing mapping technology.
> 
> Every dot on the planet has a Lat Long reference and all they've done is assign three words to each dot down to an accuracy of 3m x 3m.
> 
> If you choose to navigate using W3W, it opens your preferred navigation platform and inputs the Lat Long garnered from the three words you have input.


Yes I know, but


Edwardoka said:


> it's a closed ecosystem


which was my point. We don't know how it works because they won't tell us.


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## Dogtrousers (17 Jul 2021)

Seems like a solution looking for a problem to me. It seems to be aimed at easing person to person communication of co ordinates. But these days machine to machine transmission is almost universal, so unless there is a person in the communication chain, hearing the words and typing them into a computer what's the point?

For example, the oft repeated case of a person in need of rescue reading their coords from the app and speaking them to emergency services. Sounds great but - as I understand it (could be wrong) - all modern phones do this seamlessly, more quickly and with greater precision machine-to-machine in the background of an emergency call. Surely that makes What Three Words a slow and complicated alternative.

What am I missing?


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## dodgy (17 Jul 2021)

Dogtrousers said:


> What am I missing?


That the person in distress has a patchy signal, brevity is everything in these cases.


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## Bonefish Blues (17 Jul 2021)

It'll be loaded by many people, because curious about _their_ 3 words. It'll be forgotten. Until it's needed, when to use it is completely non-technical. Isn't that the compelling usp?


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## dodgy (17 Jul 2021)

It's not perfect, but it is compelling. So much so that the emergency services are already using it. We can claim it's crap (I don't think it is), tell the large organisations that are using it, not us 🤷‍♂️


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## Dogtrousers (17 Jul 2021)

dodgy said:


> That the person in distress has a patchy signal, brevity is everything in these cases.


In which case messing around opening a second app, rather than just calling emergency, speaking, and relying on automatic transfer is going to take _ages. _

I have no info on the transmission of emergency location. I could look it up, but I'd guess that it's as robust*, if not more so, than voice comms. Again I don't know so I'm unwilling to speculate.

I'm still puzzled by how it can be useful. There must be some compelling use cases, surely.

* Edit. A quick poke around suggests it's called ELS and relies on SMS, which is way down the stack and supported over 2G.


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## Edwardoka (17 Jul 2021)

Dogtrousers said:


> In which case messing opening a second app, rather than just calling emergency, speaking, and relying on automatic transfer is going to take _ages. _
> 
> I have no info on the transmission of emergency location. I could look it up, but I'd guess that it's as robust, if not more so, than voice comms. Again I don't know so I'm unwilling to speculate.


A couple of examples:

1. someone without a mobile signal but with a walkie talkie
2. someone in a group gets into trouble in a place without mobile signals, the person who goes to get help can much more easily remember the word triplet than coordinates

The idea isn't terrible, only the system and the litigious peanuts who built it are.


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## dodgy (17 Jul 2021)

Dogtrousers said:


> In which case messing around opening a second app, rather than just calling emergency, speaking, and relying on automatic transfer is going to take _ages. _


And yet, it works. There are plenty examples of it.
You're in denial, it honestly works, it just does, I'm not joking 🤷‍♂️


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## Dogtrousers (17 Jul 2021)

Edwardoka said:


> A couple of examples:
> 
> 1. someone without a mobile signal but with a walkie talkie
> 2. someone in a group gets into trouble in a place without mobile signals, the person who goes to get help can much more easily remember the word triplet than coordinates
> ...


Good examples, but _very_ niche. If W3W are relying on these scenarios then I'd fear for their future. 

As far as I can see the emergency scenario (other than the unusual cases above) can be better handled by Emergency Location Services (ELS) (below) provided it is appropriately rolled out. 

A quick poke around tells me ELS relies on either SMS or HTTPS. SMS is way down the stack and supported over 2G, so the "weak signal" scenario doesn't give W3W any advantage. HTTPS relies on a data connection. Drawbacks of ELS being that you need an appropriate Apple/Android phone (reportedly 99% of active Android devices do, not sure about Apple) and it needs to be supported by your network provider and emergency provider. I don't know the rollout status.

So what's the usefulness outside of the emergency scenario? 

Great for putting a location on a paper flyer (that doesn't support hyperlinks) seems like a good one.

I'm not knocking W3W. Just trying to understand how it can be useful


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## Dogtrousers (17 Jul 2021)

dodgy said:


> And yet, it works. There are plenty examples of it.
> You're in denial, it honestly works, it just does, I'm not joking 🤷‍♂️


No, I'm just trying to unders/tand. I'm not setting this up as some kind of "fanboy" slagging match. I'm not in the least bit concerned by the usual criticisms of W3W - that they aggressively protect their IP. 

I'm not suggesting that it doesn't work. Just that I can't see how it is better than the alternative.


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## dodgy (17 Jul 2021)

Dogtrousers said:


> No, I'm just trying to understand. I'm not setting this up as some kind of "fanboy" slagging match.
> 
> I'm not suggesting that it doesn't work. Just that I can't see how it is better than the alternative.


Ok, sorry. I've got no skin in the game either way. I do know it does work though. I live in the sticks, I've tried texting satellite images of our house with our house circled, precise grid co-ordinates, postcode and house number, detailed directions (left at pub, right at war memorial etc), But the only thing so far that seems absolutely fool proof is w3w.


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## BoldonLad (17 Jul 2021)

Drago said:


> It never recekved universal acclaim from the emrgency services and SAR teams, and those that did are starting to drop it for a couple of reasons. Ultimately it does nothing that a lat and long doesn't, and occasionally doesn't even do that. I certainly don't use it.



Have not actually used it, but, isn't it simply a different way of specifying latitude and longitude? ie, basically, replace the number with words? 

If it ain't broken, don't fix it springs to mind


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## dodgy (17 Jul 2021)

BoldonLad said:


> Have not actually used it, but, isn't it simply a different way of specifying latitude and longitude? ie, basically, replace the number with words?
> 
> If it ain't broken, don't fix it springs to mind



Think of w3w as DNS for IP addresses. It's the reason why we all remember cyclechat.net instead of 104.26.1.73
Also, I think you have a lot more confidence in the general public's ability to understand latitude and longitude than I do.


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## Bonefish Blues (17 Jul 2021)

BoldonLad said:


> Have not actually used it, but, isn't it simply a different way of specifying latitude and longitude? ie, basically, replace the number with words?
> 
> If it ain't broken, don't fix it springs to mind


OTOH do you think that the 'average' person knows how to get those, even from Google Maps? (I didn't, until I looked it up on Google itself!) Oh, and they have, IIRC, 6 places of decimals.

The average person _can_ read 3 words.


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## dodgy (17 Jul 2021)

Bonefish Blues said:


> OTOH do you think that the 'average' person knows how to get those, even from Google Maps? (I didn't, until I looked it up on Google itself!) Oh, and they have, IIRC, 6 places of decimals.
> 
> The average person _can_ read 3 words.


I think Bonefish gets it.


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## Bonefish Blues (17 Jul 2021)

dodgy said:


> Ok, sorry. I've got no skin in the game either way. I do know it does work though. I live in the sticks, I've tried texting satellite images of our house with our house circled, precise grid co-ordinates, postcode and house number, detailed directions (left at pub, right at war memorial etc), But the only thing so far that seems absolutely fool proof is w3w.


You wait until Aunty Mildred drives through the wall of the lounge


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## Dogtrousers (17 Jul 2021)

dodgy said:


> Ok, sorry. I've got no skin in the game either way. I do know it does work though. I live in the sticks, I've tried texting satellite images of our house with our house circled, precise grid co-ordinates, postcode and house number, detailed directions (left at pub, right at war memorial etc), But the only thing so far that seems absolutely fool proof is w3w.


In that scenario, here's what I'd do (Android/Google specific.)
Go to Google Maps
Long press on location
Click share
Choose messages (if you want to text) or emal, whatsapp etc
Choose your recipient and it will send a google maps hyperlink
Here's an example - just did it with Trafalgar Square
London​https://maps.app.goo.gl/3JsVEXyme539e14W7​The recipient clicks the link and can get directions from wherever they are (W3W won't help with directions)

My reservation is that it seems to be a GREAT solution if you need to get some co-ordinates out of computer A _put them into a human short term memory for a bit_, and then get that human to enter it into computer B. What I can't get past is that it will always be better to get the two computers to talk to each other. You can nearly always reformulate the communication chain to avoid the human brain bit.

The DNS analogy is very good. (But is gets flawed when you take it too far ... so I won't ... oh go on then: DNS enables a domain to be represented by lots of ever changing IPs. W3W is one to one)

I'm still unconvinced of the _need_ for such a DNS. Why put the information into short term memory in the first place? 

But I think I'll leave it there. I've made my doubts clear.


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## Once a Wheeler (17 Jul 2021)

I find the what3words concept interesting but its random word nature makes it less useful than a sequential system would be. For example, using a sexagesimal (base 60) counting system it would be possible to do the same thing by simply numbering each square sequentially. In this way, a look at the number in question would give one a rough idea of where it was on the face of the earth so long as one knew a few specific squares such as one's own home, a relative in Australia and a friend in Canada.

Using a 0–59 character set such as the following:
§ a A b B c C d D e E f F g G h H j J k K m M n N p P q Q r R s S t T u U v V w W x X y Y z Z @ € £ $ ^ & ~ < > ; : ! ?
the nine digit number ????????? would be more than enough to cover the earth, vastly improving on the economy of notation of what3words. So if your front door happened to be §§§PsMj<e you would know that §§§PsMPq> would be within about a kilometre of you.

Interestingly, the Babylonians got there first. Their sexagesimal counting system would have rendered ????????? as:
𒐐𒐝-𒐐𒐝-𒐐𒐝-𒐐𒐝-𒐐𒐝-𒐐𒐝-𒐐𒐝-𒐐𒐝-𒐐𒐝
Great astronomers that they were, their maths was well suited to vast numbers. It is a wonder they did not invent the bicycle too.


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## Badger_Boom (17 Jul 2021)

dodgy said:


> Think of w3w as DNS for IP addresses. It's the reason why we all remember cyclechat.net instead of 104.26.1.73
> Also, I think you have a lot more confidence in the general public's ability to understand latitude and longitude than I do.


But they don’t need to _understand_ it, just read some numbers off a screen.

As for W3W, some emergency service providers have questioned its reliability.


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## dodgy (17 Jul 2021)

Badger_Boom said:


> But they don’t need to _understand_ it, just read some numbers off a screen.
> 
> As for W3W, some emergency service providers have questioned its reliability.



Again, think DNS, which was literally invented to help humans make sense of series of numbers. You use it every day.
Try an experiment, pick the least IT literate member of your family or group of friends and ask them to tell you their latitude and longitude right now. Then imagine them doing that after they've fallen off a cliff, broken their leg on a walk or whatever.
And yes, I know there have been problems with it, I'm just saying that in my experience it works very well.


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## dodgy (17 Jul 2021)

If anyone here has worked in IT, they'll understand this thread very well indeed. The frustration that the person on the phone doesn't understand you, but to you it's easy!


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## Edwardoka (17 Jul 2021)

dodgy said:


> Think of w3w as DNS for IP addresses. It's the reason why we all remember cyclechat.net instead of 104.26.1.73
> Also, I think you have a lot more confidence in the general public's ability to understand latitude and longitude than I do.


I'm trying to work out whether I like or hate this analogy. On the one hand it is a clear parallel, short textual representation of seemingly meaningless numbers.

OTOH it's nothing like DNS, domain names are intrinsically meaningful, and IP addresses are differently meaningful (you can tell a lot aout the infrastructure with just an IP address.)

w3w names are completely arbitrary and meaningless.
If you could register a w3w address (and let's be honest, assuming their app isn't just glomming all your user data and selling it to advertisers, this is the only way their business model could generate revenue) then the comparison would make more sense. delicious.pizza.rolls anyone?

In the event it takes off, it could theoretically replace traditional addressing. I can't speak to anyone else but I'm not comfortable with the idea of a private company in charge of a closed-source addressing system for the entire world.

Like that time those scumbags at Verisign _literally_ broke the internet by redirecting all requests for unregistered .com and .net domains to their own "site finder" app.


----------



## dodgy (17 Jul 2021)

I don't think this thread is worth the time we're all spending on it on a sunny Saturday. Later folks!


----------



## Badger_Boom (17 Jul 2021)

dodgy said:


> Again, think DNS, which was literally invented to help humans make sense of series of numbers. You use it every day.
> Try an experiment, pick the least IT literate member of your family or group of friends and ask them to tell you their latitude and longitude right now. Then imagine them doing that after they've fallen off a cliff, broken their leg on a walk or whatever.
> And yes, I know there have been problems with it, I'm just saying that in my experience it works very well.


I agree about Lat/Long in the UK. We have a much simpler National Grid system, and a simple OS app that will give you an accurate and unique location to within 10m also without the need for a 5G signal.


----------



## Richard Fairhurst (17 Jul 2021)

Lovacott said:


> Sure, What3Words is an attempt to monetize mapping but isn't that exactly what Google did with Google Maps?



If I ask Google Maps for a bike route from Land's End to John O'Groats, it sends me along the A30, the A38, and a series of unrideable canal towpaths... so maybe not the most flattering of comparisons.


----------



## DaveReading (17 Jul 2021)

Once a Wheeler said:


> So if your front door happened to be §§§PsMj<e you would know that §§§PsMPq> would be within about a kilometre of you.



Well that would certainly work if we lived in a one-dimensional world.


----------



## classic33 (17 Jul 2021)

Lovacott said:


> The local emergency services have been pushing W3W in the farming community recently and the plural thing has been raised.
> 
> However, nobody in South Australia or Brazil is going to be calling Bideford Fire Brigade so those fears were quickly assuaged.


But calls for help have been made, and answered from the UK.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/may/09/british-family-rescued-navy-falklands


----------



## Lovacott (18 Jul 2021)

Richard Fairhurst said:


> If I ask Google Maps for a bike route from Land's End to John O'Groats, it sends me along the A30, the A38, and a series of unrideable canal towpaths... so maybe not the most flattering of comparisons.



It's a tricky one for a general navigation tool like Google Maps to offer up the best cycling route.

It doesn't know what type of bike you've got or what kind of rider you are. 

Where I am (North Devon), it offers me three routes for my commute, one of them being the A39 during rush hour which I would never even consider. The route I take (the shortest) would destroy a road bike within a week (lots of mud, gravel and very poor surfaces).

I suppose over time and as they gather more data, the options could be expanded so that you could specify bike type, ability and fitness?

Still, it's a million times better than tracing out a route in the local paperback A to Z.


----------



## Lovacott (18 Jul 2021)

classic33 said:


> But calls for help have been made, and answered from the UK.
> https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/may/09/british-family-rescued-navy-falklands


I was a member of The Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) as a Coastguard until 14 years ago.

The MCA monitors emergency radio channels and will either respond or help to co-ordinate marine rescue wherever it happens in the world.

The link you posted is not related in any way to the What3Words issue of a mispronunciation,misspelling or misinterpretation of a word.


----------



## Lovacott (18 Jul 2021)

dodgy said:


> If anyone here has worked in IT, they'll understand this thread very well indeed. The frustration that the person on the phone doesn't understand you, but to you it's easy!


I spent six months working the IT help desk of a London Borough back in 1995 when most people I dealt with didn't even know where the power button was on their desktop. 

Did my frickin head in.


----------



## classic33 (18 Jul 2021)

Lovacott said:


> I was a member of The Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) as a Coastguard until 14 years ago.
> 
> The MCA monitors emergency radio channels and will either respond or help to co-ordinate marine rescue wherever it happens in the world.
> 
> The link you posted is not related in any way to the What3Words issue of a mispronunciation,misspelling or misinterpretation of a word.


Just an example of a call for help, from way outside the country, being answered.


----------



## Lovacott (18 Jul 2021)

classic33 said:


> Just an example of a call for help, from way outside the country, being answered.


But they were not calling the local emergency services. They were using a global emergency radio channel and the MCA monitors it 24/7/365.


----------



## swansonj (18 Jul 2021)

Latitude/longitude and OS Grid references are free and, because their construction is public domain, will remain so for ever. If one supplier tries to charge me to get it, I can switch to another.

W3W is not public domain. It is operated by a commercial concern whose interest is in making money not in providing a public service. The assiduous way they protect their product from becoming public domain confirms that they intend to operate commercially. 

The serious concern is that if they can succeed in becoming the de facto geolocation app, if they can embed themselves to the point where we've all become dependent on them, they can then start charging us all - and we will have acquiesced in privatising something (geolocation) that ought to be a communal resource.


----------



## classic33 (18 Jul 2021)

swansonj said:


> Latitude/longitude and OS Grid references are free and, because their construction is public domain, will remain so for ever. If one supplier tries to charge me to get it, I can switch to another.
> 
> W3W is not public domain. It is operated by a commercial concern whose interest is in making money not in providing a public service. The assiduous way they protect their product from becoming public domain confirms that they intend to operate commercially.
> 
> The serious concern is that if they can succeed in becoming the de facto geolocation app,* if they can embed themselves to the point where we've all become dependent on them*, they can then start charging us all - and we will have acquiesced in privatising something (geolocation) that ought to be a communal resource.


It's taken them eight years to get where they are, a name most have heard of. 
There's too many other ways of getting your location.


----------



## Nomadski (21 Jul 2021)

Lovacott said:


> I spent six months working the IT help desk of a London Borough back in 1995 when most people I dealt with didn't even know where the power button was on their desktop.
> 
> Did my frickin head in.



You should try setting up my dads smart TV on the phone...


----------



## Lovacott (24 Jul 2021)

Nomadski said:


> You should try setting up my dads smart TV on the phone...


I totally feel your pain mate.

I've spent the best part of today trying to show my 82 year old Dad how to work his telly.


----------



## Ming the Merciless (24 Jul 2021)

aferris2 said:


> No. You can get a location without a phone signal. Did it many times in Australia.



You can, but then you can’t tell anybody what that location is.


----------



## Supersuperleeds (24 Jul 2021)

Was in Lowestoft earlier in the week and they had the what3words location on the emergency notice boards on the sea front.


----------



## Chris S (24 Jul 2021)

midlife said:


> I guess you have seen some of the smutty ones


warm white facial


----------



## Profpointy (24 Jul 2021)

Lovacott said:


> I spent six months working the IT help desk of a London Borough back in 1995 when most people I dealt with didn't even know where the power button was on their desktop.
> 
> Did my frickin head in.



We had PCs where the power button was right next to the disk eject button, and we used floppy disks a lot back then. After losing work by an accidental switch off, most of us sellotaped a plastic cup over the power button


----------



## aferris2 (24 Jul 2021)

Ming the Merciless said:


> You can, but then you can’t tell anybody what that location is.


But then none of the other methods of speaking your location (Lat/long, GPS, Postcode etc.) are going to work either. 

We used W3W to record our overnight locations during our tour in Australia. Some of our locations:

albatross.created.pavers
emotionally.diced.incompetent
mice.weekdays.wrestling,
uncrowded.corrosive.temper
physical.both.pencils
More interesting than a bunch of numbers.


----------



## keithmac (25 Jul 2021)

We use W3W for parent drop off and pickup for Scouts when we're out and about.

It's an excellent app, very accurate imho.

I have W3W app on my car headunit as well and it sends the location straight to sat nav.

Much better than postcodes.


----------



## Lovacott (25 Jul 2021)

aferris2 said:


> But then none of the other methods of speaking your location (Lat/long, GPS, Postcode etc.) are going to work either.
> 
> We used W3W to record our overnight locations during our tour in Australia. Some of our locations:
> 
> ...


I'm off to Glastonbury this week to spend a few days camping on the festival site https://worthypastures.com/camping/

Me, the missus and kids have been messing around with W3W in the last week and we are pretty confident that nobody will get lost on site.


----------



## keithmac (25 Jul 2021)

It's weird really, I can't see where all the hate is coming from for W3W, if you use grid references then fair enough but why knock W3W?.

As for the miss spelling or doubling up it's pretty bleeding obvious that the location half way around the world isn't the one you want..


----------



## mjr (25 Jul 2021)

keithmac said:


> It's weird really, I can't see where all the hate is coming from for W3W, if you use grid references then fair enough but why knock W3W?.


Because it is an attempt to enclose common knowledge, there is no free way to decode the locations and the company takes aggressive legal action against anyone attempting to either make such a decoder or a competitor. Probably the main reason they don't go against plus codes is that Google is bigger than them.


----------



## swansonj (25 Jul 2021)

keithmac said:


> It's weird really, I can't see where all the hate is coming from for W3W, if you use grid references then fair enough but why knock W3W?....


To be clear, if What Three Words were created by Ordnance Survey or by a shareware consortium, I would welcome it enthusiastically. As mjr says, it is the commercial model and the conflicting philosophies of public good that make it deeply suspect.


----------



## mjr (25 Jul 2021)

If you don't understand why enclosing the commons is a bad move, check the status of your local common. Most are either smaller than they were or gone completely. OK, we don't all need physical commons to graze our livestock any more, but usually someone rich got richer by building on the enclosed parts... allowing that to happen with knowledge is far more dangerous than with grazing land.


----------



## Ming the Merciless (25 Jul 2021)

keithmac said:


> It's weird really, I can't see where all the hate is coming from for W3W, if you use grid references then fair enough but why knock W3W?.
> 
> As for the miss spelling or doubling up it's pretty bleeding obvious that the location half way around the world isn't the one you want..



Where do you get the sense of hate. That’s a pretty strong emotion. It’s not a case of you either love or hate it like some binary emotional response is it?

From my point of view it’s just that we need to be cautious and avoid this commercial and technology dependent proposition becoming the only way to report your location in an emergency. The emergency services need to be able to accept multiple ways of reporting location as well as the person needing rescuing not relying on an app.


----------



## keithmac (25 Jul 2021)

End of the day if you don't like it or agree with it don't use it.

It's not like they've deleted Ordinance Survey grid references.

Should maps be supplied free of charge?. Surely Ordinance Survey have monetised finding out where you are already?.


----------



## DaveReading (25 Jul 2021)

keithmac said:


> Should maps be supplied free of charge?. Surely Ordinance Survey have monetised finding out where you are already?.



That's a ridiculous argument.


----------



## Edwardoka (25 Jul 2021)

keithmac said:


> End of the day if you don't like it or agree with it don't use it.
> 
> It's not like they've deleted Ordinance Survey grid references.
> 
> Should maps be supplied free of charge?. Surely Ordinance Survey have monetised finding out where you are already?.


Ordnance Survey _do _provide maps free of charge. Sure, they sell landranger foldouts and I forget the name of the other class, but what they're selling isn't just the map, it's a high-quality, weather-resistant printing of the map.

AFAICS the data underpinning the printed maps is free to use with attribution, they also provide APIs for interacting with their database, again, for free.
They do monetise this in the form of premium integration plans but I honestly can't tell what the difference is between the free and the premium one.

Plus OS do not have a monopoly on mapping, whether digital or otherwise.

Conversely, W3W is an attempt to create an exclusive product, and they seek to enforce their nascent monopoly with lots of legal threats, if they so much as suspect that someone is working in the same space.


----------



## Lovacott (25 Jul 2021)

swansonj said:


> To be clear, if What Three Words were created by Ordnance Survey or by a shareware consortium, I would welcome it enthusiastically. As mjr says, it is the commercial model and the conflicting philosophies of public good that make it deeply suspect.


Pretty much everything you use was created for commercial gain.

The laptop you typed this on, the bike you commute with.....


----------



## newfhouse (25 Jul 2021)

Lovacott said:


> Pretty much everything you use was created for commercial gain.
> 
> The laptop you typed this on, the bike you commute with.....


Nobody will sue you for making your own bike, or even laptop if you have the skills.


----------



## Lovacott (25 Jul 2021)

newfhouse said:


> Nobody will sue you for making your own bike, or even laptop if you have the skills.


And nobody is going to sue me if I create a map referencing system called "what five vegetables" either.


----------



## newfhouse (25 Jul 2021)

Lovacott said:


> And nobody is going to sue me if I create a map referencing system called "what five vegetables" either.


They will if you attempt to make it compatible with w3w, quite apart from threats about “passing off” for use of a similar name.


----------



## Ming the Merciless (25 Jul 2021)

keithmac said:


> End of the day if you don't like it or agree with it don't use it.
> 
> It's not like they've deleted Ordinance Survey grid references.



Unless emergency services or other companies adopt and can only work well with W3W. Then it becomes a problem. They of course should be using the simpler AMS system.


----------



## mjr (25 Jul 2021)

newfhouse said:


> They will if you attempt to make it compatible with w3w, quite apart from threats about “passing off” for use of a similar name.


If it is a vaguely similar idea, they will use their dodgy-looking patents to shut you down. How much do you have to spend on lawyers to prove dodgy-looking means invalid?

And w3w isn't suitable for emergencies anyway, unless you want to send mountain rescue to the wrong mountain if they don't hear an 's' on the end of a word: https://cybergibbons.com/security-2/why-what3words-is-not-suitable-for-safety-critical-applications/


----------



## keithmac (26 Jul 2021)

DaveReading said:


> That's a ridiculous argument.



No more ridiculous than the argument against W3W. 

I'm sure we have to have a subscription to download maps from OS, that subscription is not FOC.

Why should W3W not gain any income for their work?.

Takes less than a minute to convert a W3W address to Coordinates.


----------



## Ming the Merciless (26 Jul 2021)

keithmac said:


> No more ridiculous than the argument against W3W.
> 
> I'm sure we have to have a subscription to download maps from OS, that subscription is not FOC.
> 
> ...



You have one minute to convert this into OS Grid reference. Go!

”consultancy.invention.conceptions”


----------



## Lovacott (26 Jul 2021)

Ming the Merciless said:


> You have one minute to convert this into OS Grid reference. Go!
> 
> ”consultancy.invention.conceptions”


It's in Poland for starters. 

51.774162N 17.83876E


----------



## Ming the Merciless (26 Jul 2021)

Lovacott said:


> It's in Poland for starters.
> 
> 51.774162N 17.83876E



You need to change something to bring it into UK. The operator misheard the address. Try again.


----------



## mjr (26 Jul 2021)

Lovacott said:


> It's in Poland for starters.
> 
> 51.774162N 17.83876E


Show your workings and "I typed into a calculator" scores zero! (Wow, it's like when I used to teach...)


----------



## Lovacott (26 Jul 2021)

Ming the Merciless said:


> You need to change something to bring it into UK. The operator misheard the address. Try again.


It's a strange point you are trying to make.

Would the operator have heard an OS grid reference any more clearly?

Would the person ringing the operator have known their OS grid reference location anyway?

It seems like you are simply arguing for the sake of argument.


----------



## Lovacott (26 Jul 2021)

mjr said:


> Show your workings and "I typed into a calculator" scores zero! (Wow, it's like when I used to teach...)


Why would I need to show my workings?


----------



## keithmac (26 Jul 2021)

Sorry, took 30 seconds including googling their own free converter..

Couldn't have made it any easier if they tried..


----------



## Lovacott (26 Jul 2021)

keithmac said:


> Sorry, took 30 seconds including googling their own free converter..
> 
> Couldn't have made it any easier if they tried..



Apparently it's the wrong answer because the operator miss heard one of the words.

Now, please add up the following.

1,271 +2,876 whilst bearing in mind that one or both of those numbers has been typed incorrectly.


----------



## swansonj (26 Jul 2021)

keithmac said:


> Sorry, took 30 seconds including googling their own free converter..
> 
> Couldn't have made it any easier if they tried..
> 
> View attachment 601084


Yes, they are making it free (within limits) at present so that they can build market dominance then start charging. It's not exactly a previously unheard of commercial strategy.


----------



## Edwardoka (26 Jul 2021)

Funny thing, numbers. Each of them sounds almost entirely distinct (although in aviation they change four to fower, five to fife, and nine to niner), so that even if the quality of transmission is poor, they can still be correctly inferred.
Funny thing, phonetic alphabet. It's literally designed so that you cannot mishear.

Funny thing, hesitant.reticent.president. It's farking useless.

P.S. 4,147. Mental arithmetic. Who needs converters and calculators when your encoding system is intrinsically meaningful?


----------



## Ming the Merciless (26 Jul 2021)

Lovacott said:


> It's a strange point you are trying to make.
> 
> Would the operator have heard an OS grid reference any more clearly?
> 
> ...



Errors in grid references leads to small errors on the map. You do at least have an easy way of working out what the error was, and you’ll be in roughly the right area. With W3W that’s near impossible as you have ably demonstrated.


----------



## Lovacott (26 Jul 2021)

Ming the Merciless said:


> Errors in grid references leads to small errors on the map. You do at least have an easy way of working out what the error was, and you’ll be in roughly the right area. With W3W that’s near impossible as you have ably demonstrated.


You posted up 3 words and asked for a grid reference.

I supplied the correct grid reference for those 3 words.

You are simply arguing for arguments sake.


----------



## Lovacott (26 Jul 2021)

Edwardoka said:


> P.S. 4,147. Mental arithmetic. Who needs converters and calculators when your encoding system is intrinsically meaningful?


Ask the average man in South London which longitude he lives on, and he would look at you with a blank stare.


----------



## newfhouse (26 Jul 2021)

Lovacott said:


> Ask the average man in South London which longitude he lives on, and he would look at you with a blank stare.


Speaking as an average man in South London I confess I would wonder why you were asking. I know the answer to within a tenth of a degree.


----------



## Edwardoka (26 Jul 2021)

Lovacott said:


> Ask the average man in South London which longitude he lives on, and he would look at you with a blank stare.


I struggle to think of a worse example in the world. The entire basis of longitude is predicated upon how far east or west of Greenwich you are, and I suspect most Londoners know where they are in relation to both Greenwich and the river.


----------



## Lovacott (26 Jul 2021)

Edwardoka said:


> I struggle to think of a worse example in the world. The entire basis of longitude is predicated upon how far east or west of Greenwich you are, and I suspect most Londoners know where they are in relation to both Greenwich and the river.


Like I just said, ask a man in the street in South London which longitude he lives on, and he will look back at you with a blank stare.

He'll probably know his postcode though.


----------



## Edwardoka (26 Jul 2021)

Lovacott said:


> Like I just said, ask a man in the street in South London which longitude he lives on, and he will look back at you with a blank stare.
> 
> He'll probably know his postcode though.


Ask them what their what 3 words are and they'll give you 3 words, for sure, but I doubt that they appear in the w3w wordlists.


----------



## Lovacott (26 Jul 2021)

Edwardoka said:


> Ask them what their what 3 words are and they'll give you 3 words, for sure, but I doubt that they appear in the w3w wordlists.


I've asked quite a few Londoners which longitude they live on and I've never been given an answer. It's one of those things which most people don't think about as they live their daily lives. If you prompt them with the word Greenwich, they do twig it.

They'll know the tube map off by heart though and they'll know that Poplar (where I was born) is E14.

E14 is an abstract way of expressing Latitude/Longitude. E14 0AR is a bit more precise. Food.Holds.Begins is even more precise and takes you right in to the front room of the flat I used to live in back in the 1960's.

Or, you could try to remember 51.508395,-0.013679


----------



## swansonj (26 Jul 2021)

Lovacott said:


> Like I just said, ask a man in the street in South London which longitude he lives on, and he will look back at you with a blank stare.
> 
> He'll probably know his postcode though.


The UK postcode system was designed to mix numbers and letters, and for the letters (at least the area code in the incode) to be partly meaningful, on the theory that this obviously made it easier to remember. The US zipcode system was designed to use only numbers. There is research showing that the US system is actually better for remembering. I'd cite it, only I had to give my copy of the standard textbook on postcodes to Oxfam.


----------



## DaveReading (26 Jul 2021)

Lovacott said:


> Or, you could try to remember 51.508395,-0.013679



Why on earth would you want or need to do that ?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but W3W (according to their ads) has a precision of about 3 meters.

A latitude to 6 decimal places is accurate to about 4 inches.

Hardly a realistic comparison.


----------



## classic33 (26 Jul 2021)

Lovacott said:


> I've asked quite a few Londoners which longitude they live on and I've never been given an answer. It's one of those things which most people don't think about as they live their daily lives. If you prompt them with the word Greenwich, they do twig it.
> 
> They'll know the tube map off by heart though and they'll know that Poplar (where I was born) is E14.
> 
> ...


How does W3W handle tower blocks?
From what I've seen it's based on every square being on a 2D projection.


----------



## Lovacott (26 Jul 2021)

swansonj said:


> The UK postcode system was designed to mix numbers and letters, and for the letters (at least the area code in the incode) to be partly meaningful, on the theory that this obviously made it easier to remember. The US zipcode system was designed to use only numbers. There is research showing that the US system is actually better for remembering. I'd cite it, only I had to give my copy of the standard textbook on postcodes to Oxfam.


Australia uses four digits only which takes it down to suburb level.

The state capital city centres are the start point with Perth being 6000, Sydney 2000 and so on. As you radiate out from the cities, the numbers change and generally speaking, the larger the number, the further away you live from the city. I lived in 6169 which is 40km away from Perth CBD.

The UK postcode system works really well for navigation until you get out into the sticks and the postcodes widen out to cover large areas instead of just a block of half a dozen houses on an urban street.

This is what W3W is trying to get around.


----------



## mjr (26 Jul 2021)

Lovacott said:


> E14 is an abstract way of expressing Latitude/Longitude. E14 0AR is a bit more precise. Food.Holds.Begins is even more precise and takes you right in to the front room of the flat I used to live in back in the 1960's.


Really? Not the flat above or below? I rather suspect the flat number with the postcode would be more useful to the emergency services.


----------



## Lovacott (26 Jul 2021)

DaveReading said:


> Correct me if I'm wrong, but W3W (according to their ads) has a precision of about 3 meters.



Lat Long references could take you to a spot a micron square. Publicly available GPS can't do that yet though.

It's probably fair to say though, that if you are within three metres of where you want to be, you are where you want to be.


----------



## Lovacott (26 Jul 2021)

mjr said:


> Really? Not the flat above or below? I rather suspect the flat number with the postcode would be more useful to the emergency services.


The postcode takes you to the building. You still need the flat number to find the flat.


----------



## mjr (26 Jul 2021)

Edwardoka said:


> Ask them what their what 3 words are and they'll give you 3 words, for sure, but I doubt that they appear in the w3w wordlists.


You might be able to put their answer into www.FourKingMaps.com (NSFW - and probably only online until w3w's lawyers manage to snatch the domain via WIPO, based on past parodies)


----------



## Edwardoka (26 Jul 2021)

Lovacott said:


> I've asked quite a few Londoners which longitude they live on and I've never been given an answer. It's one of those things which most people don't think about as they live their daily lives. If you prompt them with the word Greenwich, they do twig it.
> 
> They'll know the tube map off by heart though and they'll know that Poplar (where I was born) is E14.
> 
> ...


Postcodes are not a representation, abstract or otherwise, of latitude and longitude, they are a system for sorting and delivering mail.
The top of a mountain doesn't have a postcode, but it has a latitude and longitude.

The postal encoding system itself doesn't tell you _anything _about the actual place, except in London where the letter part of the postcode prefix provides relative cardinal/ordinal directions from the centre, but the numbers are not meaningfully tied to the geography.

If you want to refer to a postcode in terms of coordinate systems, they can be described as an irregular polygon where each vertex has a latitude and a longitude. But, again, that's not very useful, since the postal region KA27 has an area of 432 km².


----------



## Lovacott (26 Jul 2021)

Edwardoka said:


> Postcodes are not a representation, abstract or otherwise, of latitude and longitude.


They actually are.


----------



## Edwardoka (26 Jul 2021)

Lovacott said:


> They actually are.


[Citation needed]


----------



## newfhouse (26 Jul 2021)

Lovacott said:


> They actually are.


What’s the algorithm?


----------



## mjr (26 Jul 2021)

newfhouse said:


> What’s the algorithm?


Surprisingly similar to w3w, involving looking them up in a proprietary bible, but without as much calculation.


----------



## Profpointy (26 Jul 2021)

Edwardoka said:


> Ask them what their what 3 words are and they'll give you 3 words, for sure, but I doubt that they appear in the w3w wordlists.



You'll probably get two words: foxtrot oscar


----------



## Edwardoka (27 Jul 2021)

Profpointy said:


> You'll probably get two words: foxtrot oscar


You guessed the first two correctly, the third I had in mind was the surname of a German philosopher named Immanuel


----------



## matticus (27 Jul 2021)

Bonefish Blues said:


> OTOH do you think that the 'average' person knows how to get those, even from Google Maps? (I didn't, until I looked it up on Google itself!) Oh, and they have, IIRC, 6 places of decimals.
> 
> The average person _can_ read 3 words.


I do get this, truly I do; but consider, there will be a heck of a lot of people in the UK who misspell one of
logo
mermaid
cemented

I recently had a B&B owner try to give me directions over the phone; I wrote down all the w3w sets he gave me - the first two turned out to be wrong, because I probably wrote them down wrong.


----------



## Arrowfoot (27 Jul 2021)

I did wonder why with the likes of Strava, the authorities could have created an app that pulls long/latitude from GPS direction. Something that W3W does but coded in 3 words? Or am I reading this all wrong .


----------



## mjr (27 Jul 2021)

Arrowfoot said:


> I did wonder why with the likes of Strava, the authorities could have created an app that pulls long/latitude from GPS direction. Something that W3W does but coded in 3 words? Or am I reading this all wrong .


Many map apps have a "share my location" command (try longpressing your location marker, or looking on the menus). There is also a system to make many phones text your location to the emergency services when you call them, no app needed. Here is Google explaining how it works on Android: https://crisisresponse.google/emergencylocationservice/how-it-works/

Pretty much the only problems that w3w solves that aren't already solved by "share my location", QR codes and emergency location services are: 1. verbally giving locations out (but there are alternatives for most uses, some debatably better like plus codes); and 2. how w3w's investors will ever make their money back!


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## Amazonian (28 Jul 2021)

Obviously we don't know what caused the issue, but they're saying quite plainly they prefer OS grid ref...


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## Bonefish Blues (28 Jul 2021)

... and that they can work with any other location format. The OS ref is the 'gold standard'. W3W may well become the layman's standard. That's the point I and others have been making, and both will get you rescued.


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## Amazonian (28 Jul 2021)

Bonefish Blues said:


> ... and that they can work with any other location format. The OS ref is the 'gold standard'. W3W may well become the layman's standard. That's the point I and others have been making, and both will get you rescued.


Absolutely, but it's also clear there are issues with W3W. My view is that it's great idea, and I 100% see all the benefits to it. But I also think they're lacking slightly in the execution and their marketing/business strategy makes me very uncomfortable.


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## rogerzilla (28 Jul 2021)

mjr said:


> You might be able to put their answer into www.FourKingMaps.com (NSFW - and probably only online until w3w's lawyers manage to snatch the domain via WIPO, based on past parodies)


Already nuked by the men in grey.


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## Dogtrousers (28 Jul 2021)

Amazonian said:


> Absolutely, but it's also clear there are issues with W3W. My view is that it's great idea, and I 100% see all the benefits to it. But I also think they're lacking slightly in the execution and their marketing/business strategy makes me very uncomfortable.


I remember when it emerged - it won a competition of some sort that was reported in the New Scientist. It may be a bit late emerging because it needs an environment without competition to flourish, and that's not the case in the UK, as there are easier and well established alternatives. Other countries may be more fertile ground.

I think their main plan / hope may well be to be bought up by one of the big players. If Amazon, say, decided to use it as an addressing standard or something like that. Otherwise I think it may be likely remain as a very cute ingenious idea with some enthusiastic fans.

According to wiki Mercedes Benz have invested but I think they may need someone bigger if they want broader uptake.


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## Lovacott (31 Jul 2021)

Dogtrousers said:


> I remember when it emerged - it won a competition of some sort that was reported in the New Scientist. It may be a bit late emerging because it needs an environment without competition to flourish, and that's not the case in the UK, as there are easier and well established alternatives. Other countries may be more fertile ground.


I've just got back from a few days camping at Worthy Farm Pilton, which is the site of the Glastonbury Festival.

It was basically the "Glastonbury" experience without the bands.

I used W3W to mark our tent location and then used it's compass tool to take us back there after six pints of Moons Cider in the site bar.

Worked really well.

I also had a chat with Michael Eavis and played air guitar on the skeleton of the Pyramid stage.


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## byegad (31 Jul 2021)

Our local 999 types advocate using it.

I can see the issue with pronunciation, and literacy issues. Our local accent could cause issues I guess. As to multiple word sets for a house, as it's broken down to 3m x 3m and our house is considerably larger especially if you include the 'grounds', we do get more than one set for our house.


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## Phaeton (6 Jul 2022)

Had a push notice today (must remember to switch them off) but they are trying to attract crowdfunding, good idea to invest?


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## mjr (7 Jul 2022)

Phaeton said:


> Had a push notice today (must remember to switch them off) but they are trying to attract crowdfunding, good idea to invest?


They are just another attempt to enclose common knowledge. You may think it's a good idea to invest if you would have supported Thomas "most odious in this country" Tresham in the Midland Revolt, rather than the villagers.


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## Phaeton (7 Jul 2022)

mjr said:


> They are just another attempt to enclose common knowledge. You may think it's a good idea to invest if you would have supported Thomas "most odious in this country" Tresham in the Midland Revolt, rather than the villagers.



I think I have heard of his cousin Thomas "the tank" Engine.


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## Dogtrousers (7 Jul 2022)

Phaeton said:


> Had a push notice today (must remember to switch them off) but they are trying to attract crowdfunding, good idea to invest?



If they were going to succeed they would have done so by now - and success would have manifested itself by their being bought up by Apple or Google or Amazon or similar. That hasn't happened. 

The fact that they're scratching around for crowdfunding at this stage doesn't bode well for them.

It's a clever idea, but has no killer use case and a lot of flaws.


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## keithmac (7 Jul 2022)

I'm surprised Sat Navs haven't taken it up, I use Co-Pilot and can feed it a location from What 3 Words app on my screen.


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## Milkfloat (7 Jul 2022)

keithmac said:


> I'm surprised Sat Navs haven't taken it up, I use Co-Pilot and can feed it a location from What 3 Words app on my screen.



They have, quite a few include the functionality. W3W seem to think they have the golden goose and so hold out on pricing. Over 15 years ago I made the recommendation to my company to buy W3W and open source it, this was ignored. We now licence the data at a pretty significant cost.


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## Phaeton (7 Jul 2022)

Milkfloat said:


> They have, quite a few include the functionality. W3W seem to think they have the golden goose and so hold out on pricing. Over 15 years ago I made the recommendation to my company to buy W3W and open source it, this was ignored. We now licence the data at a pretty significant cost.



Don't you just hate that, you have a great idea & nobody with the say so agrees, I once suggested we wrote an integrated VoIP system for Facebook & was advised there's no point it won't be here in a couple of years,


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## Ming the Merciless (7 Jul 2022)

Milkfloat said:


> They have, quite a few include the functionality. W3W seem to think they have the golden goose and so hold out on pricing. Over 15 years ago I made the recommendation to my company to buy W3W and open source it, this was ignored. We now licence the data at a pretty significant cost.



Impressive given what three words was only founded 9 years ago.


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## Proto (7 Jul 2022)

May have been mentioned earlier but DPD are now including it in their delivery address options.
I understand the Fire Service also use it.


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## Milkfloat (7 Jul 2022)

Ming the Merciless said:


> Impressive given what three words was only founded 9 years ago.



The company may have only been founded 9 years ago, but they hawked the idea around long before that. Although looking at my old emails, it was Feb 2009 I made my proposal so not 15 but 13.

As an aside, my company went with another idea that would assign an ID to every human at birth that they could then geolocate themselves. Kind of like a moving personal post code. It was a terrible idea.


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## Dogtrousers (7 Jul 2022)

Milkfloat said:


> As an aside, my company went with another idea that would assign an ID to every human at birth that they could then geolocate themselves. Kind of like a moving personal post code. It was a terrible idea.


I think it's a great idea. And should be quite easy to do and wouldn't have any data protection or privacy concerns either. Coolio.


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## Milkfloat (7 Jul 2022)

Dogtrousers said:


> I think it's a great idea. And should be quite easy to do and wouldn't have any data protection or privacy concerns either. Coolio.



Exactly - I have no idea how much we paid for the concept, but it got killed pretty quickly. Just one of the many dodgy decisions made over the years. You certainly will have heard of the company and would have had one of their phones.


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## Phaeton (7 Jul 2022)

Milkfloat said:


> As an aside, my company went with another idea that would assign an ID to every human at birth that they could then geolocate themselves. Kind of like a moving personal post code. It was a terrible idea.


Tattooed onto the back of their neck or on their forearm?


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## Ming the Merciless (7 Jul 2022)

Milkfloat said:


> The company may have only been founded 9 years ago, but they hawked the idea around long before that



Company formed in March 2013, patent applied in April 2013, yeah long time before July 2013 launch!


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## Dogtrousers (7 Jul 2022)

Ming the Merciless said:


> Company formed in March 2013, patent applied in April 2013, yeah long time before July 2013 launch!



I remember when it was first announced, they won some prize or other for best geolocation idea or something dull. I read a magazine article about it. That was precisely lots of years ago. Plus a bit.


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## Ming the Merciless (11 Oct 2022)

Accounts out and they lost £43 million in a year. Spectacular mis management of a company.


View: https://twitter.com/cybergibbons/status/1579726108546994177


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## Bollo (11 Oct 2022)

At least the administrators should be able to find them easily enough.


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