Feb 19, 2020
What is what3words? what3words is a really simple way to talk about location. We have assigned each 3m square in the world a unique 3 word address that will never change. For example, filled.count.soap marks the exact entrance to what3words’ London headquarters. 3 word addresses are easy to say and share, and are as accurate as GPS coordinates.
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With what3words, Chris Sheldrick and his team have divided the entire planet into three-meter squares and assigned each a unique, three-word identifier, like insisting.cycle.minutes, which will take you right to the main door (at the time this podcast was published) or provider.enjoyed.plot which will take you right to the scale house door at Real Alloy in Wabash, Indiana, giving a precise address to the billions of people worldwide who don't have one.
Examples of where this is beneficial:
Search engine integration:
My favorite search engine is Duck Duck Go and they use What3words. This is how you use it in Duck Duck Go:
I am usually asked next “Well why do I need to use what3words when I use Google Maps?
what3words isn’t a navigation app like Google Maps. As I said earlier, it’s a global addressing system that makes it simple to communicate exact locations. You can use what3words alongside Google Maps to navigate to precise destinations and to save and share exact locations faster and more easily than ever before.
Google Maps usually isn’t helpful if you want to navigate directly to a specific building entrance or location in a park. This is because when entering a street address into Google Maps, a pin typically drops in the center of a building or postcode, rather than an exact location. I had a horrible experience with it years ago when I was working for Diamonds Limousine service and had to drop off a client and took them to the wrong location which was about 20 miles off course. Embarrassing for both me and our company.
While a 3 word address cannot yet be typed straight into Google Maps, it is easy to find a 3 word address in the what3words app and then navigate to that destination via Google Maps or your preferred navigation app. If you use the What3words app you can then navigate with it through Google maps. Here is a link to a 7-second video showing you how.