I just had to share this. Talking to a colleague on a trip to London recently we got into a conversation about how complicated the UK Postal codes and addresses looked. At least to an American’s eye. This lead to deeper conversations storing data around locations in latitude and longitude and how addresses were not really the best way to do this any more. I lamented that there had to be a more simpler way. Specifically If you were an emergency services worker and you needed to try and locate a person for a medical emergency or a fire or even a lost a child. That is when he told me about What Three Words. I had never heard of this before – but its so simple it was one of those “Oh my Gosh, why didn’t I think of this” moments.
What Three Words is an application for your phone (or the web or whatever) that has essentially mapped out and delineated the entire planet in 3 square meters and assigned a three word combination to it. The combination is completely unique. While not necessarily a substitute or a replacement for the address system it can give you a deeper understanding of the exact location in question. A total boon for remote or rural locations, or even in those scenarios where there are duplicative addresses. Thinking of you Atlanta and corner of Peachtree and Peachtree. 🙂
Why three words instead of two? or some other number? Well in order to break down the entire planet into 3 meter units you need 57 Trillion addresses to cover the world. Two words only gets you to 1.6 Billion. With Three words they have more than enough word combinations to cover the entire planet.
While I am sure there is a methodology to the allocation, I cannot help but think there is some sneaky behavior going on. For example, my office location is glorified.octaves.thrashing. Do they somehow know about my early morning dance parties? Those are a real thing…as is my bad singing.
You should download the app today or have a little fun exploring the website at:
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