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Nigeria has become the seventh country to adopt what3words for mail deliveries

what3words.com

31–40 of 57 posts

Re: Nigeria has become the seventh country to adopt what3words for mail deliveries

#31
post #5

I'm really glad that these folks are succeeding, they've been at it a really long time. They contacted us when I was on a non-profit board that ran an event a few years ago, and it was obvious that it was a great idea that we had no way of implementing. Now that everyone has a phone with them all the time, they're past that barrier. I hope that they get great success.

It's not obvious to me how this is a good thing at all. Can you explain your reasoning?

Re: Nigeria has become the seventh country to adopt what3words for mail deliveries

#32
post #12
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like they've got that covered: "If we, what3words ltd, are ever unable to maintain the what3words technology or make arrangements for it to be maintained by a third-party (with that third-party being willing to make this same commitment), then we will release our source code into the public domain. We will do this in such a way and with suitable licences and documentation to ensure that any and all users of…

Not particularly reassuring, can't someone just create an open system with a similar concept and release the mapping.

>can't someone just create an open system with a similar concept

There's a pretty good, working parody at http://what3fucks.com

Re: Nigeria has become the seventh country to adopt what3words for mail deliveries

#33
post #20

How is this convenient? "doors.aware.secure" gives you no indication of where it could be, especially when the neighbor is "hotel.leans.poetic" If it's not meant for humans, then why not use GPS coordinates which are even more precise? Not to mention, I'm sure there will be insensitive randomly generated strings like "muddy.ashes.pardon" https://map.what3words.com/muddy.ashes.pardon

from the website, https://what3words.com/about/ :

> Street addresses worldwide are inaccurate, unreliable and don’t exist at all in many places. Poor addressing is expensive and frustrating, hampers economic growth and development, restricts social mobility and affects lives.

> Street addresses can usually identify a building, but aren’t accurate enough to help a courier or taxi driver find the correct entrance. This results in delayed or failed deliveries, and numerous ‘where are you’ phone calls.

Re: Nigeria has become the seventh country to adopt what3words for mail deliveries

#34
post #20

How is this convenient? "doors.aware.secure" gives you no indication of where it could be, especially when the neighbor is "hotel.leans.poetic" If it's not meant for humans, then why not use GPS coordinates which are even more precise? Not to mention, I'm sure there will be insensitive randomly generated strings like "muddy.ashes.pardon" https://map.what3words.com/muddy.ashes.pardon

oven.likes.zips is much easier to communicate and memorize than 40.7484° N, 73.9857° W (location of empire state building).

Re: Nigeria has become the seventh country to adopt what3words for mail deliveries

#35
Another reminder that a proprietary system from a for-profit company should not be used as the basis for addressing in any country.

Here's some good reporting on the company: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/06/the-m...

Re: Nigeria has become the seventh country to adopt what3words for mail deliveries

#36
post #20

How is this convenient? "doors.aware.secure" gives you no indication of where it could be, especially when the neighbor is "hotel.leans.poetic" If it's not meant for humans, then why not use GPS coordinates which are even more precise? Not to mention, I'm sure there will be insensitive randomly generated strings like "muddy.ashes.pardon" https://map.what3words.com/muddy.ashes.pardon

oven.likes.zips is much easier to communicate and memorize than 40.7484° N, 73.9857° W (location of empire state building).

Yeah, because "350 5th Ave, NYC" is just so hard to communicate...

Re: Nigeria has become the seventh country to adopt what3words for mail deliveries

#37
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

oven.likes.zips is much easier to communicate and memorize than 40.7484° N, 73.9857° W (location of empire state building).

Yeah, because "350 5th Ave, NYC" is just so hard to communicate...

Exactly. City it's usually obvious. With an address you need to memorize street and number, 2 things. With 3 random words, there's no hint to remind you of what it might be. With an address, at least you could say it's on Main St. if you don't remember the whole address.

Re: Nigeria has become the seventh country to adopt what3words for mail deliveries

#38
post #20

How is this convenient? "doors.aware.secure" gives you no indication of where it could be, especially when the neighbor is "hotel.leans.poetic" If it's not meant for humans, then why not use GPS coordinates which are even more precise? Not to mention, I'm sure there will be insensitive randomly generated strings like "muddy.ashes.pardon" https://map.what3words.com/muddy.ashes.pardon

what3words is a large hash table mapping 3x3m squares of land with the key being a unique three word phrase and the value being the 3x3 grid square. That's really all it is. Oh, by the way, if the service goes down, everything grinds to a halt because there is no backup analog system (maps, etc). It's a solution searching for a problem, and existing mail and building addressing schemes are far superior to it.

So it'd be easy for everybody to contribute their address and GPS coordinates to an open database. Eventually it'd be usable enough that most people wouldn't need to access the paid for DB.

Re: Nigeria has become the seventh country to adopt what3words for mail deliveries

#39
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easy for humans to memorize, though I don't know exactly what that's worth...

When all you need now is '123 Fake St, 12345' to get a map of a location and directions to it on your phone, not much. You can locate '123 Fake St, 12345' without a phone, so it wins.

As others have pointed out, lots of places in underdeveloped countries don't have street names and numbers.
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