5 ms·

It's faster to read than long lat and it probably uses gps. The innovation is in the user friendly hash table of Geo locations

pgeorgi 7y ago
And apparently it has to feed 100 employees (what are they even doing?) I doubt that's true for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Location_Code https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Location_Code and so I'd be less concerned about incentives changing over time (also, it doesn't need a central maintainer for the hash map).
- jjeaff 7y ago
  3 employees to maintain the system. 97 employees doing sales, marketing, and PR.
- julienreszka 7y ago
  Olc Isn't as user friendly as three words
  - pgeorgi 7y ago
    It's the same letters around the globe though. If you have a bunch of folks exchanging the following 3 Word Addresses, you better hope they get it textual in a medium that allows copy & paste - in which case OLC is no worse off. 语焉不详.思潮.眼球 (962CWVRJ+9X) ज्ञात.महाकाय.भौहों (9G4729FC+39) (58H58WHV+GX) القول.تفريق.لأهتم เคี้ยว.สมุนไพร.ผัก (9F4MG95X+7M) штанишки.вытер.разбавлять (8GW3XJP2+RV) And then there's terms of use: - For 3 Word Addresses you (hopefully) get "a non-assignable, non-transferable, non-exclusive and revocable licence". (note: revocable) - And worse, with the list above I might have violated their ToS: "Further, you must not publish (yourself or via a third party) any list or database of 3 Word Addresses with 3 Word Address Locations". - It's also not allowed to provide a service that translates a 3 Word Address into something else (such as OLC or GPS coordinates) so they could be used with software or devices that happen to use different schemes: "you may use any 3 Word Address in any way that you wish, provided ... you in no way use 3 Word Addresses or 3 Word Address Locations to provide or seek to provide a product or service the same as or similar to any product or service provided by us" - Finally, if they ever decide to shut down their server, all your 3 Word Address are gone as "any copying, re-utilisation, extraction, reproduction or redistribution of the what3words Materials ... is expressly prohibited".

pgeorgi 7y ago

And apparently it has to feed 100 employees (what are they even doing?) I doubt that's true for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Location_Code https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Location_Code and so I'd be less concerned about incentives changing over time (also, it doesn't need a central maintainer for the hash map).

jjeaff 7y ago
3 employees to maintain the system. 97 employees doing sales, marketing, and PR.
julienreszka 7y ago
Olc Isn't as user friendly as three words
- pgeorgi 7y ago
  It's the same letters around the globe though. If you have a bunch of folks exchanging the following 3 Word Addresses, you better hope they get it textual in a medium that allows copy & paste - in which case OLC is no worse off. 语焉不详.思潮.眼球 (962CWVRJ+9X) ज्ञात.महाकाय.भौहों (9G4729FC+39) (58H58WHV+GX) القول.تفريق.لأهتم เคี้ยว.สมุนไพร.ผัก (9F4MG95X+7M) штанишки.вытер.разбавлять (8GW3XJP2+RV) And then there's terms of use: - For 3 Word Addresses you (hopefully) get "a non-assignable, non-transferable, non-exclusive and revocable licence". (note: revocable) - And worse, with the list above I might have violated their ToS: "Further, you must not publish (yourself or via a third party) any list or database of 3 Word Addresses with 3 Word Address Locations". - It's also not allowed to provide a service that translates a 3 Word Address into something else (such as OLC or GPS coordinates) so they could be used with software or devices that happen to use different schemes: "you may use any 3 Word Address in any way that you wish, provided ... you in no way use 3 Word Addresses or 3 Word Address Locations to provide or seek to provide a product or service the same as or similar to any product or service provided by us" - Finally, if they ever decide to shut down their server, all your 3 Word Address are gone as "any copying, re-utilisation, extraction, reproduction or redistribution of the what3words Materials ... is expressly prohibited".