[mxuribe]

Whether this article is a puff piece, i think is less important (though it sure seems it to me). The important aspect here is that for some people GPS is failing them; and to me it's an UI/UX problem.

For example...Why do developers use text names for variables in their programs, and why don't they just use binary - which are clearly more precise? </sarcasm>

If this is in fact a proprietary thing, then I really dislike that. If something is actually, supposedly this useful, then it should be public domain. However, I'll give credit to the founders of what3words for attempting to solve an issue that they ran into (to scratch their itch as it were). Would "fixing" the delivery issue with the government service (postal service in the original case) be the appropriate solution? Would better UI for current GPS apps be another solution? Maybe, probably...But the founders took a hypothesis and ran with it to test it out; kudos to them for that. Clearly, it is working for some people. While no one might argue for the benefits of precision that conventional GPS coordinates bring, what is clear - in real life - is that some people could benefit from an alternative UI for describing their location.

So, a puff piece, yeah sure; it seems it to me. Nifty and novel concept for using an alternative "language" for indicating and describing location; yep. Is it great? I guess we'll see. Does it have to be a whole, different thing, or can it be a layer on top of legacy GPS? Who knows?

Do YOU have a better alternative???

[nxpnsv]

Nearby locations have radically different 3 words - thus it is useless for distances and small typos can lead to arbitrarily large errors.

[mxuribe]

You mean like if the following GPS location is uttered verbally to, say, a first responder: 40.7485452,-73.9879575 ...you likely would end up in midtown NYC...while if i verbally forget to include the "-"...then i end up in Kyrgyzstan? ;-)

I'm teasing you of course (all in good fun). But you certainly make valid points: what3words isn't perfect...But, i still stand by the point that it's a novel approach, AND that there's an opportunity here (here, i mean an opportunity for the betterment of society, safety, humanity, etc., less about "business opportunity").

[Gys]

There are many alternative systems that are open and based on algoritmes. The only downside of those: they do not have massive VC money backing them to do the marketing. But then again, in the end these VCs will need a massive return. Guess who will pay for that ;-)

[nxpnsv]

nothing wrong with the basic idea of using words, but this implementation serves as a hash to obfuscate locations through a closed standard. One could form a grid per word and make it finer in steps, but then people would understand buffalo is US, banana is NYC, and bogus is midtown, and be able to use the system without the whatthreewords service... thinking about it we do have those words already, US.NYC.midtown would work just fine...