What.Three.Words

[DeskJockey]

Just seen that someone has pitched to the business that we should use this for our global addresses. It may be adopted

What issues does the business have that pitcher thinks this will address?

They've bought into the idea of a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. Apparently addresses are old hat.

[unzippy]

[nuttinnew]

w.t.f
where.am.i
you.are.here

[nuttinnew]

From mik's Boris post;

[Jobbo]

I haven't seen any ads for What Three Words recently - I guess they've run low on the start-up capital. And I think people are finding it doesn't work very well, as anyone sensible said in the first place. How long will they carry on, do you reckon?

[Gavster]

I see it used quite regularly, especially at events and in large open spaces, at festivals etc. where phone signal can be dodgy. The 5k race at the weekend also supplied what.three.words references in their race pack. Apparently very popular with emergency services too.

[jamcg]

We use it at scouts when sending out location information to parents. Zero ambiguity as many places don’t work well with satnav and it’s possible to go to the wrong place as there can sometimes be different places with the same name.

Eg. We sometimes camp at a scout site called Thornthwaite near Harrogate. If you Google Thornthwaite campsite the first result is in Keswick

[Jobbo]

Ambiguities aren’t as much of a problem as actual errors. You don’t have any context to work out the right location if it’s slightly wrong.

I think the infamous balls up using it for the queue to see the Queen lying in state might have been the beginning of the end for it: https://gizmodo.com/queen-elizabeth-ii- ... 1849536290

[Rich B]

Scout camps, 5k park runs and mountain rescue... I'd have thought they'd need more customers than that to grow as a business!

[Jobbo]

You’d think, wouldn’t you

[IanF]

I've had DPD and Evri deliveries to my wtw location, plus I know modern cars can use it in their satnav, well before that was replaced by apple CarPlay etc., but I think the scale is just too small. If you look at a typical house, the number of boxes is massive. Maybe 10mx10m would've worked sufficiently well?

[Simon]

It's about locating the front door exactly, not just the address though.

[jamcg]

Scout camps, 5k park runs and mountain rescue... I'd have thought they'd need more customers than that to grow as a business!

Agreed, it would probably see more use as an optional layer in google maps rather than it’s own app, but that would mean selling the company as a whole to google and closing up shop

[Jobbo]

Scout camps, 5k park runs and mountain rescue... I'd have thought they'd need more customers than that to grow as a business!

Agreed, it would probably see more use as an optional layer in google maps rather than it’s own app, but that would mean selling the company as a whole to google and closing up shop

There's already a way to pinpoint a location to more accuracy in Google Maps (co-ordinates); why would they pay for this?

[Gavster]

Scout camps, 5k park runs and mountain rescue... I'd have thought they'd need more customers than that to grow as a business!

There are 50 million scouts in the world. I would absolutely fucking love to have that many potential customers.

[Gavster]

Aside from the undertone of schadenfreude in this thread, have I missed something about them struggling or going under? They've been going for 10 years, and have a core global audience that probably far exceeds 100m people, which is more than most businesses. Seems like a perfectly viable opportunity unless there's some news about them which I haven't seen.

[Rich B]

Scout camps, 5k park runs and mountain rescue... I'd have thought they'd need more customers than that to grow as a business!

There are 50 million scouts in the world. I would absolutely fucking love to have that many potential customers.

yep, 50 million children would be a great audience for a private YouTuber/TikTok person… sadly WTW is a business with investors including Intel Capital, Mercedes-Benz, Sony Innovation Fund, Subaru, Aramex, Deutsche Bahn, Ingka Investments, ITV AdVentures Invest and Channel 4 Ventures who will all want some return on their investment!

[Jobbo]

Aside from the undertone of schadenfreude in this thread, have I missed something about them struggling or going under? They've been going for 10 years, and have a core global audience that probably far exceeds 100m people, which is more than most businesses. Seems like a perfectly viable opportunity unless there's some news about them which I haven't seen.

Just lack of publicity except negative stories which appear from time to time. I was always against their model of making location info a proprietary dataset which can't be decoded without a licence from them and a smartphone or computer. Ultimately it would be potentially useful if open source, though no more useful than knowing how to read a map or simply using any other mapping app on your phone.

[Rich B]

Aside from the undertone of schadenfreude in this thread, have I missed something about them struggling or going under? They've been going for 10 years, and have a core global audience that probably far exceeds 100m people, which is more than most businesses. Seems like a perfectly viable opportunity unless there's some news about them which I haven't seen.

well their accounts on companies house show a £16m loss on 2020 and a £43 million loss in 2021…

[Jobbo]

This is from January: https://www.businessofapps.com/data/wha ... tatistics/

I know it's cool to be unprofitable as a tech start-up, but their revenue was only £458,000 in 2020 and their annual losses (having never made a profit) increased to £16.1m.