what3words is a geocoding system that divides the surface of the entire world into a grid of 3m x 3m squares and assigns each square a unique combination of three words. For example, this REMO story is being written on Thursday 5 October 2023 at a table near the back of a Bondi Beach café located at: ///leaps.posed.frost
Founded by Chris Sheldrick, Jack Waley-Cohen, Mohan Ganesalingam and Michael Dent, what3words was launched in July 2013. Sheldrick and Ganesalingam conceived the idea when Sheldrick, working as an event organiser, struggled to get bands and equipment to music venues using inadequate address information. He tried using GPS coordinates to locate the venues, but decided that words were better than a string of numbers after a one-digit error led him to the wrong location. He credits a mathematician friend for the idea of dividing the world into 57 trillion squares, and the linguist Jack Waley-Cohen with using memorable words to identify each of those squares. It has resulted, in what Sheldrick refers to as "a common language of location".
For an overview of the what3words system, watch this short video, or for a more chatty origin story watch a 2016 DO Lecture by Sheldrick HERE. It’s a pretty compelling pitch, which Sheldrick likens to the addition of wheels onto luggage, an observation that we published for RR#1 and archived HERE.
what3words is indeed a better mousetrap way of being able to unambiguously pinpoint a very specific geographic location.
Since 2019, what3words has seen some fairly widespread adoption by emergency services around the world. Indeed, by September 2021, more than 85 percent of British emergency services teams used what3words, including the Metropolitan Police and London Fire Brigade. Support has also been added to the Australian Government's 000 "Emergency Plus" app.
And the system is multilingual. Every square metre of the planet is addressed in English and Korean, and every square metre of land is addressed in a further 48 languages. That means that five billion people can already use what3words in their native tongue, and the system is potentially well on its way to becoming a global standard.
The system isn’t perfect. Words are more prone to be misheard or misspelled. In December 2019, the Lake District Search & Mountain Rescue Association noted that "mishearing or misspelling words tended to cause problems" and warned hikers not to rely on it. Localised accents can also contribute to the problem.
Even so, these todays what3words is being used to: deliver mail to nomadic herders in Mongolia, direct taxis in the labyrinth streets of Japan and mark the locations of walkers around Sydney harbour.
Here’s a cool use case referenced in a Sydney Morning Herald piece from September 2023: Back in Mongolia, in the Taiga snow forest, 26 hours north of Ulaanbaatar, reindeer herders Zorigt and Otgonbayar follow the movements of their herd every few weeks. Their life is defined by finding the best shelter to get through the brutal winters. Now the couple have a side hustle to supplement their incomes during summer, and their get (also known as a yurt) has become the most remote Airbnb experience in the world, and one with an constantly-updated what3words address, but no fixed address.
We wish what3words well. The system and app is currently free for anyone to use, and its revenue comes from charging businesses that benefit from its products. The business generates losses, and it wouldn’t be the first time that a great idea ran out of steam for want of a sustainable business model.
What3words long-term success will hinge on whether it can achieve one goal: to change the way people think.
“We have to get into the minds of the population”, says Sheldrick in the SMH piece. “We just have to change behaviour from what they did yesterday to using three words.”
Story Idea: Adam Dennis
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References
what3words.com
wikipedia.org/wiki/What3words
smh.com.au/world/asia/how-do-you-deliver-mail-to-someone-with-no-fixed-address-20230918
Images
1. what3words.com
2. Chris Sheldrick. Image: DO Lectures
3. Image via what3words.com
4. Video: About what3words
5. what3words app
6. Sydney harbour foreshore walk sign
7. 3 word mailing address in Mongolia
8. Reindeer herders Zorigt and wife Otgonbayar run an Airbnb in remote Mongolia
9. The writers location for this story: /// leaps.posed.frost
