What3Words Going Mainstream?

[aferris2]

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]

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]

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.

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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

That's a ridiculous argument.

 

[Edwardoka]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.