Describe Any Location On Earth In 3 Words

First time accepted submitter jameshumphreys writes "London startup what3words has successfully launched a new website which has carved the world map into almost 57 trillion 3m x 3m squares, assigning each square a simple, unique 3 word address. For instance, the 'what3words' for the famous Peter Pan statue in London's Hyde Park is 'union.prop.enjoy'. This means you can easily describe even remote locations with great precision. CEO Chris Sheldrick says, 'We see our service being most useful where current methods of describing location (e.g. postcodes or ZIP codes) don't do the job well enough or don't do the job at all — but of course it has applications as a preferred alternative even where the existing solutions do a decent job, but perhaps less precise/customised than w3w.' An API is planned 'in the coming weeks.'" The heart of Disneyworld could be "Radioactive Humanoid Mice"; what would you call your neck of the woods?

Comments

You can do it with just latitude / longitude

[Anonymous Coward]

You only need two pieces of information right now - latitude and longitude. Throw in elevation if you really want to be particular. Trying to make everything look like a URL address serves no real purpose.

Re:You can do it with just latitude / longitude

[cryptizard]

Because most people can't remember a long string of numbers but they can easily remember three english words. It is the same reason people don't carry around 128-bit AES keys in their head, even though it would make for much better security.

Re:You can do it with just latitude / longitude

[iggymanz]

no, "most" would imply more than 3.5 billion people had that ability. most humans would not have such for english, but maybe in their native tongue.

our computers and cell phones remember such things as GPS very well, let's stick with that.

Re:You can do it with just latitude / longitude

[cryptizard]

Yes, but unfortunately we don't have a super great interoperable way to exchange those GPS coordinates right now. We do have lots of ways to exchange words. This bridges that gap.

Re:You can do it with just latitude / longitude

[cryptizard]

Now what does my mom do with that message? If I give her three words and tell her to type them into this website, it will be much more successful that telling her to do the same with a bunch of numbers she will easily fuck up.

Re:You can do it with just latitude / longitude

[Anonymous Coward]

Because most people can't remember a long string of numbers but they can easily remember three english words. It is the same reason people don't carry around 128-bit AES keys in their head, even though it would make for much better security.

So you're saying it's easier to try and memorize 3 words for each of the 57 trillion locations?
There isn't any kind of cohesive system for this. There's no way to look at one "address" and then infer neighboring addresses, for example. It simply has nothing which allows for easy reference, without access to this company's service you can't look them up on a map.
Basically what they're selling is a marketing tool. They want businesses to pay them to name a location, so people can search for the name of that location and see it on a map. Which begs the question, why not just search for the name of the business in the first place?

The only problem this seems to solve is the problem of these guys not having enough of your money in their wallets.

So...

[xeio87]

It's a TinyUrl for map coordinates, but more human memorable?

longitude and latitude

[Anonymous Coward]

So, I am confused how this is better than longitude and latitude? I can use L&L offline, and it can have almost an infinite precision. Also, with my memory I am no more likely to remember the 3 words here than a long string of numbers.

another.useless.service

[mveloso]

why.not.another
cheese.ball.central
i.hate.periods
t.l.a

What is correct?

[Minwee]

Horse, battery, staple.

Re:no.no.no

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

"Without being able to look up the mapping from the database, the three words don't seem to be useful."

Exactly, consumer! Our awesome new system replaces those pesky, confusing, 'numbers' that hurt your little head and interoperate with basically any map, globe, or other geography system on earth, with three simple words that are meaningful only in the context of our proprietary service! Isn't it great?

Just think of the possibilities: will it be more lucrative to charge fees for service? Or maybe mine people's queries for marketable insights about their behavior?

Re:This is the dumbest idea ever

[Tim12s]

This is going to catch on. Stupid ideas always do.

Continuity

[seyyah]

I'm sitting at beach.country.pineapple and my co-worker is at closing.rheumatoid.begin. How does that help someone find out if he's 6 feet away or 6000 miles away?

And how do you spell "rheumatoid" again?

Soundalikes...

[Zontar The Mindless]

...could provide a few special moments.

Stockholm Central

Route 4, near Rutland VT, USA

In the South Atlantic, about 250 km off the coast of Argentina

Re:This is the dumbest idea ever

[Lunix Nutcase]

They want to be bought by a Google for a billion. Hence all the hype building.

Re:um okay

[CrimsonAvenger]

57 trillion locations, with three words each, with no duplicate IDs. Hmm, 38,000+ uniquely spelled words required to be able to do this.

Hmmm, not sure whether I know 38,000 uniquely spelled words or not. But I'm willing to bet most people don't.

Three words for the startup what3words

[paiute]

stupid.fucking.idea

or more accurately:

google.please.buyus

Re:Damn. Too many words.

[Moryath]

Texas = Shitty Christian Taliban.

Six words would seem to work a lot better

[wonkey_monkey]

For instance, the 'what3words' for the famous Peter Pan statue in London's Hyde Park is 'union.prop.enjoy'

What's wrong with "peter.pan.statue.hyde.park.london"?