3 ms·

What on Earth is what3words' business model? Did they expect to own the concept of using words as coordinates?

by cush 5y ago

1970-01-01 5y ago
I just found out that yes, they in fact have that as a patent.
- cush 5y ago
  Damn. I wonder if the concept of mapping phone numbers to words is still up for grabs. I'd love to see the look on Oscar Mayer's face when they realize they need to pay me royalties for 1-800-HOT-DOGS
paulv 5y ago
Think of the 3 words like a phone number. They could try to sell access to the only phone book that exists. Requires some kind of critical mass, but I've heard of worse business plans. They could also probably sell novelty "phone numbers", like every professional sports team buys the equivalent of "boston red sox" for the location of their stadium. No clue what their actual business model is, I'm just spitballing.
- Doctor_Fegg 5y ago
  They did have the novelty addresses in an early iteration (called “OneWord”) but have since dropped it.
- TheCoelacanth 5y ago
  Sounds an awful lot like they're trying to inject themselves as a rent-seeking middle-man.
scrooched_moose 5y ago
As I understand it they're aggressively marketing and lobbying to become the standard mapping system in underdeveloped countries without a strong addressing system. Once they've achieved this (either informally or by getting enshrined in the legal system) they can start squeezing local businesses and the government for access to their service. It's pure rent seeking. As part of this strategy, it's in their interest to create an unnecessarily unintuitive service so you can't go anywhere without using their app. The three words provide absolutely zero geographic information about the location. They're about as close to a truly evil company as I can think of. Luckily they seem to have had minimal success so far, as the revenue numbers are awful.
- hakfoo 5y ago
  It feels like it doesn't really solve a lot of "address" problems. Addresses typically correspond to a single building or subdivided unit. Your home/apartment/factory could overlap several GPS grid squares, and then people have to decide which one is canonical or record all of them. In most places, addresses are roughly sequential. This gives you the ability to reason relatively: If I just walked past stores numbered 2503 and 2505, and I'm looking for 2751, how far away am I and am I going in the right direction? Easy to estimate. If I'm looking for manatee.fracas.bologna and I'm at porkpie.hamster.obnoxious, I can't make a conclusion. Sequential addresses also make sorting and routing easier. Group the items by street name, then sort by number. No technology required, and easy to monitor and fix if it gets upset. Shuffle a few envelopes in a W3W mailbag, and it's going to be a lot harder to get it back in order.

What on Earth is what3words' business model? Did they expect to own the concept of using words as coordinates?

by cush 5y ago

What on Earth is what3words' business model? Did they expect to own the concept of using words as coordinates?

1970-01-01 5y ago

I just found out that yes, they in fact have that as a patent.

cush 5y ago
Damn. I wonder if the concept of mapping phone numbers to words is still up for grabs. I'd love to see the look on Oscar Mayer's face when they realize they need to pay me royalties for 1-800-HOT-DOGS

paulv 5y ago

Think of the 3 words like a phone number. They could try to sell access to the only phone book that exists. Requires some kind of critical mass, but I've heard of worse business plans. They could also probably sell novelty "phone numbers", like every professional sports team buys the equivalent of "boston red sox" for the location of their stadium. No clue what their actual business model is, I'm just spitballing.

Doctor_Fegg 5y ago
They did have the novelty addresses in an early iteration (called “OneWord”) but have since dropped it.
TheCoelacanth 5y ago
Sounds an awful lot like they're trying to inject themselves as a rent-seeking middle-man.

scrooched_moose 5y ago

As I understand it they're aggressively marketing and lobbying to become the standard mapping system in underdeveloped countries without a strong addressing system. Once they've achieved this (either informally or by getting enshrined in the legal system) they can start squeezing local businesses and the government for access to their service. It's pure rent seeking. As part of this strategy, it's in their interest to create an unnecessarily unintuitive service so you can't go anywhere without using their app. The three words provide absolutely zero geographic information about the location. They're about as close to a truly evil company as I can think of. Luckily they seem to have had minimal success so far, as the revenue numbers are awful.

hakfoo 5y ago
It feels like it doesn't really solve a lot of "address" problems. Addresses typically correspond to a single building or subdivided unit. Your home/apartment/factory could overlap several GPS grid squares, and then people have to decide which one is canonical or record all of them. In most places, addresses are roughly sequential. This gives you the ability to reason relatively: If I just walked past stores numbered 2503 and 2505, and I'm looking for 2751, how far away am I and am I going in the right direction? Easy to estimate. If I'm looking for manatee.fracas.bologna and I'm at porkpie.hamster.obnoxious, I can't make a conclusion. Sequential addresses also make sorting and routing easier. Group the items by street name, then sort by number. No technology required, and easy to monitor and fix if it gets upset. Shuffle a few envelopes in a W3W mailbag, and it's going to be a lot harder to get it back in order.