I’ve been seeing lots of buzz about what3words (w3w), an intriguing addressing system that assigns a combination of three words to every 3m x 3m square on Earth. For example, you can find the center of LSU Tiger Stadium at upward.searcher.superstar. w3w’s API toggles 3-word addresses with lat/long coordinates, so you can actually locate the address (one of the, I assume necessary, annoyances of w3w addresses is that the words are random, so you have no information about adjacent addresses based on a known address).
As a completely useless example of how you can use the w3w API, I present w3w Poems. Following the rules found here for creating a 3-word poem for Ms.Guillory’s 5th grade classroom at Gardner Pilot Academy in Allston, Massachusetts, the user is presented with a random w3w address, which is the first line of the poem. The last two words become the first two words on the next line. The user enters a third word. If it completes a new w3w address, the user is whisked away to the location, the poem line completes, and a new partial poem line is presented. The user repeats until they decide the poem is complete.
Enjoy!
FYI: There’s a whole blog about w3w inspired poetry.
- This project was featured on Google Maps Mania!
- This project is is mentioned in the Language Log!
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