What is a locpin? It's a a unique six-character code made of letters and numbers, uniquely identifying any location on the planet. Anyone can create one for free, and everyone could benefit.
The service, created by a British startup, believes these identifiers could be hugely helpful for delivery, e-commerce and social purposes. There are 29 million addresses in the UK alone, yet only 1.8 million postcodes. 10-15% of those postcodes are actually inaccurate, claims Locpin.
Using your locpin, a parcel service could get a package to your door more quickly and cheaply, thanks to having delivery information that's 100% accurate. Not only can you create a free locpin for your address, you can add personal information to it - your phone number or email address, for example - or something more contextual like "The second green door on the left - mind the slippery steps".
If you think it sounds familiar then you might have heard of What3words, a similar service that recently launched. But Locpin differentiates itself by letting you add that extra but of contextual information.
Handily, your unique identifier will follow you if you move house, meaning you'll not have to worry about telling people your new address. You'll just have to change the location of your locpin.
Needs traction
"We've got a platform here that can integrate into many systems very easily," Locpin co-founder Guy Davenport told us. "We're about empowering the customer to take control of their own data".
But it all relies on gaining traction. Locpin is a new service, and will take time to gain respect from businesses; it now has the job of persuading potential partners. Next time you order something online, keep an eye out for the locpin logo.
And when the drones come, Locpin will be ready. As Davenport explained, having a locpin could be particularly useful when Amazon's (and others') tiny delivery planes eventually take flight: "The drone's going to need the accurate codes to deliver, and we're already in place to deal with that."
