What3words
what3words is a proprietary geocode system designed to identify any location on the surface of the earth with a resolution of about 3 metres (9.8 ft). It is owned by What3words Limited, based in London, England. The system encodes geographic coordinates into three permanently fixed dictionary words. For example, the front door of 10 Downing Street in London is identified by ///slurs.this.shark.[2]
Part of the What3Words grid on the Palace of Westminster showing typical words and their pseudorandom distribution | |
| what3words | |
| Founded | 2013 |
| Founders |
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| Headquarters | London, England, UK |
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Number of employees | 119 [1] (2021) |
| Website | www |
What3words differs from most location encoding systems in that it uses words rather than strings of numbers or letters, and the pattern of this mapping is not obvious; the algorithm mapping locations to words is protected by copyright.[3]
The company has a website, apps for iOS and Android, and an API for bidirectional conversion between what3words addresses and latitude/longitude coordinates.
History
Founded by Chris Sheldrick, Jack Waley-Cohen, Mohan Ganesalingam and Michael Dent, what3words was launched in July 2013.[4][5] Sheldrick and Ganesalingam conceived the idea when Sheldrick, working as an event organizer, struggled to get bands and equipment to music venues using inadequate address information.[6] Sheldrick tried using GPS coordinates to locate the venues, but decided that words were better than 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 3-metre (10 ft) squares, and the linguist Jack Waley-Cohen with using memorable words.[7] The company was incorporated in March 2013[8] and a patent application for the core technology filed in April 2013.[9] In November 2013, What3words raised $500,000 of seed funding.[10]
In January 2018, Mercedes-Benz bought approximately 10% of the company and announced support for What3words in future versions of the Mercedes-Benz User Experience infotainment and navigation system.[11]
In 2018, the company had a turnover of £274,000 and lost £11M.[12] In the year ending December 2019, the company lost £14.5M and had reported assets of £24.7M.[13] By January 2020, the company had reached 100 employees and raised over £50M from investors.[12] In the year ending December 2020, the company lost £16.09M. In the year ending December 2021, the company lost £43.29M.[1]
In March 2021, it was announced that ITV plc had invested £2 million in What3words as the first investment in its media-for-equity scheme.[13]
Customers
What3words originally sold "OneWord" addresses, which were stored in a database for a yearly fee,[14] but this offering was discontinued[15] as the company switched to a business-to-business model.[12]
In 2015, the company was targeting logistics companies, post offices, and couriers.[16]
The Mercedes A-Class, launched in May 2018, became the first vehicle in the world with What3words on board.[17]
Since 2019, What3words has seen adoption by emergency services, who can use it for free[18] and frequently promote the app on social media[citation needed]. As of September 2021, more than 85 per cent of British emergency services teams use What3words, including the Metropolitan Police and London Fire Brigade.[19][20] Support has also been added to the Australian Government's Triple Zero Emergency Plus App.[21]
Design
Wordlists
What3words divides the world into a grid of 57 trillion 3-by-3-metre (10 ft × 10 ft) squares, each of which has a three-word address. The company says they do their best to remove homophones and spelling variations;[22] however, at least 32 pairs of English near-homophones still remain.[23]
Wordlists are available in 50 languages,[24] each of which uses a list of 25,000 words (except for English, which uses 40,000 to cover sea as well as land).[25] Translations are not direct, as direct translations to some languages could produce more than three words. Rather, territories are localised "considering linguistic sensitivities and nuances".[26] Densely populated areas have strings of short words to aid more frequent usage; while less populated areas, such as the North Atlantic, use more complex words.[26][7]
In a 2019 blog, open standards advocate and technology expert Terence Eden questioned the cultural neutrality of using words rather than the numbers generated by map coordinates. "Numbers are (mostly) culturally neutral." he said, "Words are not. Is mile.crazy.shade a respectful name for a war memorial? How about tribes.hurt.stumpy for a temple?"[20]
Ambiguity
What3words state that similar addresses are spaced as far apart as possible to avoid confusion,[27] and that similarly sounding codes have a 1 in 2.5 million chance of pointing to locations near each other.[28]
However, security researcher Andrew Tierney calculates that 75% of What3words addresses contain plural words that also exist in singular form (or the reverse).[23] Co-founder and CEO Sheldrick responded that "Whilst the overwhelming proportion of similar-sounding three-word combinations will be so far apart that an error is obvious, there will still be cases where similar sounding word combinations are nearby."[29]
Further analysis by Tierney shows that in the London area, around 1 in 24 addresses will be confusable with another London address.[30]
In September 2022, the Department of Culture, Media and Sport used What3words to direct mourners to the end of the queue to view the Queen lying in state in London. Of the first five codes published, four led to the wrong place,[31] including a suburb of London some 15 miles from the real end of the queue.[32] Officials later moved to an automated system to generate the identifiers, as they realised having people involved in the process resulted in typos.[31]
Reception
According to Rory Sutherland from the advertising agency Ogilvy in a 2014 op-ed piece for The Spectator, the system's advantages are memorability, accuracy, and non-ambiguity in speech.[33]
Emergency services
What3words has been promoted around the world after successful use by emergency services:
- In September 2019, the Scottish Ambulance Service used the app to share the location of an injured hillwalker with the coastguard.[34]
- In February 2020, Ambulance Tasmania sent a link to locate an injured bushwalker.[18]
- In October 2020, Singapore Police Force asked two lost 14-year-old boys to download and use the app.[35]
- In July 2022, Baldwin County dispatchers used the app to pinpoint a capsized kayaker, with responders saying that they "were within 50 yards and couldn't see him because of the conditions in the water".[36]
- In August 2022, Tröstau Fire Brigade used the app to communicate a location to the Wunsiedel mountain rescue service.[37]
- In September 2022, Halton emergency services located an injured climber using the app.[38]
The system has also been promoted after adoption by:
- Los Angeles Fire Department[39]
- Austin Police and Fire Departments[40]
- Riley County Police Department[41]
- Ontario Provincial Police and Hastings-Quinte Paramedic Service[42]
Mountain rescue
Mountain rescue services in the UK have warned against relying on the app:
- 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.[43]
- In June 2021, Mountain Rescue England and Wales raised concerns about the credibility of reported What3words coordinates, following incorrect information being given about 45 locations over 12 months. Spelling issues and local accents were reported as being part of the problem.[44]
Open standards
Supporters of open standards criticise the What3words system for being controlled by a private business and the software for being patented and not freely usable.[20]
The company has pursued an assertive policy of issuing copyright claims against individuals and organisations that have hosted or published files of the What3words algorithm or reverse-engineered code that replicates the service's functionality, such as the free and open source implementation WhatFreeWords.[45] The whatfreewords.org website was subsequently taken down following a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) take-down notice issued by What3words. This has extended to removing comments on social media which refer to unauthorised versions. In late April 2021, a security researcher was subjected to the threat of a lawsuit from What3words, stating that linking to the open source reimplementation "WhatFreeWords" violates the company's copyright.[46] "The letter also demanded that he disclose to the [company's lawyers] the identity of the person or people with whom he had shared a copy of the software, agree that he would not make any further copies of the software and to delete any copies of the software he had in his possession."[46]
Parody
The site has been parodied by others who have created services including What3Emojis[47] using emojis, What3Birds[48] using British birds, What3fucks[49] using swear words, Four King Maps[50][51] also using swear words (covering only the British Isles), and What3Numbers[52] using OpenStreetMap tile identifiers.
Awards
- Grand Prix for Innovation at the 2015 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity[53]
- The Tech Awards 2015 Sobrato Organization Economic Development Award[54]
See also
- Advanced Mobile Location – Widely implemented caller location for emergency services
- Geographic coordinate system – System to specify locations on Earth
- Geohash – Public domain geocoding invented in 2008
- Projected coordinate system – Cartesian geographic coordinate system
- Mapcode – Proprietary geocode system
- Maidenhead Locator System – Geocode system used worldwide by radio amateurs
- Open Location Code – Encoding of geographic coordinates into a short string of characters and digits, named plus code
- Universal Transverse Mercator coordinate system – System for assigning planar coordinates to locations on the surface of the Earth.
References
- ^ a b c d https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/08430008/filing-history/MzM1NDA2ODA5OGFkaXF6a2N4/document?format=pdf&download=0
- ^ Leatherdale, Duncan (15 August 2019). "What3words: The app that can save your life". BBC News. Retrieved 31 January 2021.
- ^ "What3Words sent a legal threat to a security researcher for sharing an open-source alternative". TechCrunch. Retrieved 11 November 2021.
- ^ "'What3Words' Wants To Replace Postcodes With Words – For The Entire Globe". HuffingtonPost. 2 July 2013.
- ^ "Location-Pinpointing Startup what3words Sells 10,000+ OneWord Map-Pins In First Week". Techcrunch. 8 July 2016.
- ^ Lanks, Belinda (11 October 2016). "This App Gives Even the Most Remote Spots on the Planet an Address". Magenta.as.
- ^ a b Margolis, Johnathan (20 October 2015). "What3Words: new tech that will find any location". Financial Times. Retrieved 15 June 2021.
- ^ "What3words Limited - Overview (free company information from Companies House)". Companies House.
- ^ "A Method and Apparatus for Identifying and Communicating Locations". World Intellectual Property Organization.
- ^ "Startup what3words gets USD 500,000 in seed round". Venture Capital Post.
- ^ "Why Daimler Invested in a Startup That Has Labeled the World With Unique Three-Word Addresses". Fortune. 11 January 2018.
- ^ a b c Sam Shead (15 January 2020). "A navigation startup pivots and grows, but profitability is still down the road". Business Insider.
- ^ a b Stephen Lepitak (25 March 2021). "British Broadcaster ITV Invests $2.7 Million in Location Finding Platform What3words". Adweek.
- ^ Lomas, Natasha (8 July 2013). "Location-Pinpointing Startup what3words Sells 10,000+ OneWord Map-Pins In First Week". TechCrunch.
- ^ "Why can't I buy my own words or change some of the words?". what3words.
- ^ Margolis, Jonathan (20 October 2015). "What3Words: new tech that will find any location". Financial Times.
- ^ Brecht, Michael (5 April 2018). "What3words: Diese Ortungssoftware gibt es bald serienmäßig in Daimlers A-Klasse". Die Welt.
- ^ a b Power, Julie (18 May 2020). "Three random words saved Cornelia on a cold wet day of bushwalking". Sydney Morning Herald.
- ^ Moules, Jonathan (26 September 2021). "Chris Sheldrick of What3words: lessons from scaling a start-up". Financial Times.
- ^ a b c "What3words: 'Life-saving app' divides opinion". BBC News. 21 September 2019.
- ^ "Triple Zero". Australian Government. Australian Government.
- ^ "How do you take into account words that sound the same or can be spelled in different ways?". What3words support. from the original on 9 August 2020. Retrieved 9 August 2020.
- ^ a b Tierney, Andrew (29 April 2021). "Why What3Words is not suitable for safety critical applications" (PDF). Mountain Rescue. No. Summer 2021. p. 30. ISSN 1756-8749.
- ^ "Celebrating 50 Languages". Official website - what3words.com.
- ^ Turk, Vicki (18 August 2018). "What3words changed how we map the world. And it didn't stop there". Wired. Retrieved 5 October 2022.
- ^ a b Lo Dico, Joy (6 February 2021). "Postcodes from the edge: how an upstart app is changing the world's addresses". Financial Times. Retrieved 15 June 2021.
- ^ "How are the words assigned?". What3words support. from the original on 9 August 2020. Retrieved 9 December 2020.
- ^ "App used by emergency services under scrutiny". BBC News. 29 April 2021. Retrieved 29 April 2021.
- ^ Wakefield, Jane (29 April 2021). "App used by emergency services under scrutiny". BBC News. Retrieved 16 June 2021.
- ^ "What3Words The Algorithm". 20 September 2021. Retrieved 20 September 2021.
- ^ a b Turner, Camilla (14 September 2022). "Mourners sent to back of the queue (in California) as tracking system suffers early blips". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 19 September 2022.
- ^ Stokel-Walker, Chris (14 September 2022). "UK Government Sends Mourners to North Carolina to Queue for the Queen". Gizmodo. Retrieved 19 September 2022.
- ^ Rory Sutherland (25 October 2014). "The best navigation idea I've seen since the Tube map". The Spectator. Archived from the original on 5 January 2015.
- ^ "'Life-saving' app used in Western Isles hillwalker rescue". BBC News. BBC. 28 September 2019.
- ^ "Boys, 14, got lost in MacRitchie forest trying to find a shrine". The Straits Times. 1 November 2020.
- ^ Pippin, Cory (20 July 2022). "Kayaker floating in Mobile Bay rescued thanks to Baldwin Co. 9-1-1 GPS technology". WPMI. Retrieved 29 September 2022.
- ^ "Bei Tröstau: Helfer üben gemeinsam - Frankenpost". www.frankenpost.de (in German). Retrieved 29 September 2022.
- ^ "Milton rock climbing incident leaves woman with serious injuries". www.insidehalton.com. Retrieved 29 September 2022.
- ^ Staff (8 September 2021). "What3Words App Connects LAFD To People In Need Of Help Faster". CBS News.
- ^ Staff (12 March 2022). "This app and three words could save your life". Kxan.
- ^ "Three words that can keep your family safe, police say". KSNT 27 News. 27 September 2022. Retrieved 29 September 2022.
- ^ Nick Westol (12 March 2022). "What3words app increasingly being used by Ontario's emergency services to find people who are lost". global news.
- ^ Humphries, Will (26 December 2019). "Don't rely on location app What3words, say rescuers". The Times. Retrieved 20 September 2022.
- ^ Wakfield, John (1 June 2021). "Rescuers question what3words' use in emergencies". BBC. Retrieved 1 June 2021.
- ^ "DMCA takedown of code on Github". GitHub. 5 July 2016.
- ^ a b Whittaker, Zack (30 April 2021). "What3Words sends legal threat to a security researcher for sharing an open-source alternative".
- ^ "what3emojis". what3emojis.com.
- ^ "Location Encoding Systems". checkmypostcode.uk.
What3Birds...is a parody of the commercial What3Words system, which isn't suitable for this website as it doesn't have a published, open source algorithm. It does, though, work - every postcode on this website has a unique, three bird code. The list of birds was taken (in simplified form) from the British Ornithologists' Union's official list of birds recorded in Britain.
- ^ . Archived from the original on 5 December 2019.
- ^ "Four King Maps".
- ^ Corfield, Gareth (14 August 2021). "Tired: What3Words. Wired: A clone location-tracking service based on FOUR words – and they are all extremely rude". The Register. London. Retrieved 24 December 2021.
- ^ "what3numbers". Github.io.
- ^ Diaz, Ann-Christine (26 June 2015). "What3Words Innovation Grand Prix Cannes – Special: Cannes Lions – Advertising Age". adage.com.
- ^ "San Jose: Tech awards honor an array of laureates". Mercury News. 12 November 2015.