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How does Google's Plus codes fair in comparison with W3W? It's apparently open-source: https://plus.codes/developers https://plus.codes/developers

• lioeters 8y ago
  Here's a link to a Wiki page, in the repo for Open Location Code (prior name for Plus Codes), where they compare it against numerous location encoding systems including W3W. https://github.com/google/open-location-code/wiki/Evaluation-of-Location-Encoding-Systems#web-based-services https://github.com/google/open-location-code/wiki/Evaluation... For W3W, they say: - The codes may be pseudo-randomly generated and so nearby places may have completely different codes. - It may be possible for multiple people to apply for codes for the same location and for different codes to be generated. - Making a mistake with a code may simply display somewhere else - for example, on What3Words, "banana rabbit monkey" is a location in Argentina, "banana monkey rabbit" is in Russia. - [It charges] money either for granting a code, for resolving codes or for allowing users to select their own short code. - [It does] not work offline and [has] a single provider. Plus Codes has respective advantages for each of these points, i.e., it's not proprietary; can be encoded/decoded offline; nearby places have similar codes; codes can be made longer for more accuracy; excludes easily confused characters; etc. Overall I found the article makes a convincing case for Plus Codes.