National Postcodes to be introduced

Sam Russell

a65b2cd wrote: »

Every code will have strengths and weaknesses if you are looking for a code that has spatial qualities, database qualities, technology free, and memorable. Eircode scores very highly:

Eircode Score: 13/18
1. Stimulate mail volume growth: no - more junk mail
2. Boost national competitiveness: yes - how?
3. Address the problem of non-unique addressing: yes -if you have access to the database
4. Assist in the provision of public and private sector services: yes How?
5. ... Utilities: yes
6. ... Emergency services: yes - They do not seem to agree
7. ... Conduct of research: yes ????
8. To facilitate new postal operators: yes - only if they copy An Post
9. To conform to international practice: no
10. Public postcode, not a “hidden” or technical code: yes Oh really - a pay wall?
11. Structured: no
12. Easily memorised: yes Random letters?
13. Future orientated: yes ????
14. Cost effective, available, accessible, high quality and low maintenance:? High maintenance and a pay wall
15. Address the issue of non-unique addresses: = 3 above
16. Neutral as between postal operators: yes Useless for all of them
17. Minimising cost to operators and government: no
18. Electronically identifiable globally using simple software: yes
19. Efficiency in the postal sector: not applicable yes

I think most of that is opinion. (including my comments)

recedite

ukoda wrote: »

I've said this before on this thread, loc8 had 4 years and they didn't make an impact on the Irish market to any real level

What impact has eircode had in the last year or two? In fairness no system is going to have a huge impact until it gains the status of being the official state system, with mandatory usage required for paying government property tax and other dealings.
The only question is whether the officially sanctioned system will be a good one or not.

Avada

yuloni wrote: »

If he had submitted and lost, tough shít... suck it up says we. But he wasn't even allowed to submit... that's gotta hurt a little

They're a completely unprofessional outfit, I'm delighted that for once common sense prevailed and they didn't allow loc8 to submit a tender. FFS, their main form of marketing is for Delaney to spam the journal and boards (and previously pretend he had nothing to do with loc8 whilst doing so).

He's grasping at straws and just launching a smear campaign against Eircode. Yes, it has its problems, but to be honest, it has plenty of uses. If I'm ringing the emergency services, I'm not going to download the loc8 app to tell me where I am, so it has 0 benefit in this regard versus Eircode.

ukoda

recedite wrote: »

What impact has eircode had in the last year or two? In fairness no system is going to have a huge impact until it gains the status of being the official state system, with mandatory usage required for paying government property tax and other dealings.
The only question is whether the officially sanctioned system will be a good one or not.

If no system is going to have an impact without being the official state postcode, then why did they bother creating loc8
Was it thier intention to pre create Ireland's postcode and assume the government would hand them a contract?

Loc8 launched 4 years ago as a private enterprise and have failed to gather public / consumer support for thier product. That's their fault. No one else's.

ukoda

Random_Name wrote: »

They're a completely unprofessional outfit, I'm delighted that for once common sense prevailed and they didn't allow loc8 to submit a tender. FFS, their main form of marketing is for Delaney to spam the journal and boards (and previously pretend he had nothing to do with loc8 whilst doing so).

He's grasping at straws and just launching a smear campaign against Eircode. Yes, it has its problems, but to be honest, it has plenty of uses. If I'm ringing the emergency services, I'm not going to download the loc8 app to tell me where I am, so it has 0 benefit in this regard versus Eircode.

i knew he was doing that but i actually hadn't read any of the comments on the Journal until today. Its actually shocking what he's doing. Its disgraceful. i have absolutely no respect for him anymore.

And he's basically talking to himself when he posts as Himself and then replies to his comments under the Get Lost Eircode name. he's going to end up getting labeled as a crackpot.

Curly Judge

ukoda wrote: »

If no system is going to have an impact without being the official state postcode, then why did they bother creating loc8
Was it thier intention to pre create Ireland's postcode and assume the government would hand them a contract?

Loc8 launched 4 years ago as a private enterprise and have failed to gather public / consumer support for thier product. That's their fault. No one else's.

Loc 8 has made a hell of a lot more inroads to the Irish market than Eircode.
Delaney has every right to feel miffed.... if indeed he does.
He can run rings around any of the opposition technically and has a far superior and intuitive system.
The incestious "insider trading" that went on during the evolution of this project has been disgraceful and would merit a public enquiry.
A level playing field and fair play for everyone, is all anybody is asking for here.

a65b2cd

Sam Russell wrote: »

I think most of that is opinion. (including my comments)

I am answering the scorecard based on medium and larger enterprises using the full potential of eircodes as well as allowing for the limited quota of daily free look-ups for the occasional user.

1. Stimulate mail volume growth: no - more junk mail
This could go either way. A company that is currently doing generalised mail shots could make them more specific e.g. to specific small areas of around 75 addresses or a new company could enter the market to do same. Utilising the link in the database, between eircode and small area or district, will facilitate targeted mail shots. These small areas were designed to be relatively homogenous.

2. Boost national competitiveness: yes - how?
An Post gave examples of other service and delivery drivers regularly asking their staff for directions to an address. With the X/Y this will not be necessary hence both time and money will be saved as well as increased privacy due to not having to ask locals where so and so lives and there will be lower fuel costs by avoiding driving around lost.

3. Address the problem of non-unique addressing: yes -if you have access to the database
I am assuming you have access to the database as realising the full benefits of eircodes requires that. What use would a LOC8 or GoCode be if you did not have access to navigation software or the internet.

4. Assist in the provision of public and private sector services: yes How?
The database will greatly facilitate policy formulation and delivery. Why else is so much money being spent on pre-coding public sector databases? Working out target areas where there is an over or under supply of services will save money.

6. Emergency services: yes - They do not seem to agree
The National Ambulance Services have stated that they will use it and find it useful. Some of their employees have expressed other views but perhaps that is already an indication that it will be useful!

7. Conduct of research: yes ????
There will be lot more useful information available about the economic and social situation of communities e.g. areas where there are unusually high incidences of a disease or of suicide. Electoral Divisions are too big to be useful as are the existing Dublin postal districts. Liam Duggan spoke on Wednesday about being able to aggregate the data to many different analysis areas e.g. heath district

8. To facilitate new postal operators: yes - only if they copy An Post
They will no longer have to ask An Post staff for directions!

10. Public postcode, not a “hidden” or technical code: yes Oh really - a pay wall?
The database opens the code up while protecting privacy as it will not contain any personal information.

12. Easily memorised: yes Random letters?
B2CD, GDGD, 1F2D - difficult to remember!

13. Future orientated: yes ????
Lots of capacity so need to ever have to revise the codes because of population increases.

14. Cost effective, available, accessible, high quality and low maintenance:? High maintenance and a pay wall
This is a very mixed attribute. High quality and low maintenance don’t really go together except when using something like LOC8 to find a specific location.

16. Neutral as between postal operators: yes Useless for all of them
Time will tell.

my3cents

a65b2cd wrote: »

..

12. Easily memorised: yes Random letters?
B2CD, GDGD, 1F2D - difficult to remember!

..

This has to be a fairly big plus. It shouldn't be difficult to remember your routing code and it could probably be generated from the address anyway so you are left with just a 4 digit code to remember.

Sam Russell

a65b2cd wrote: »

I am answering the scorecard based on medium and larger enterprises using the full potential of eircodes as well as allowing for the limited quota of daily free look-ups for the occasional user.

Any postcode would do most of this.

A better postcode than Eircode could do so much more, and could be designed not to need a database, and should be free (state owned). No one has to pay for their address so why pay for your address code?

The Swiss appear to have an ideal one. Free, short, numeric, and free.

It is not too late for a redesign.

ukoda

Sam Russell wrote: »

Any postcode would do most of this.

A better postcode than Eircode could do so much more, and could be designed not to need a database, and should be free (state owned). No one has to pay for their address so why pay for your address code?

The Swiss appear to have an ideal one. Free, short, numeric, and free.

It is not too late for a redesign.

Eircode is state own. They own the IP, Capita only operate it.

For the public, it's free to get, It is free to use, free to look up online. The only charge is when used for commercial purposes, meaning its self financing

All seems fine to me

yuloni

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ukoda

The journal and other articles have been swamped by Gary and his supports arguing with people who call him out on some of his claims, if you take that out of the equation you're left with the usual moaners that post negitive comments on every single thing the government does. It's no different to any other article.

Don't be fooled into over estimating the publics negativity to eircode

The Journal did a poll on one article and it was very much in favour of having a postcode for Ireland, and like I've said the public will get an Eircode and start using it and will never know of this arguement on this thread, nor will they care

yuloni

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ukoda

yuloni wrote: »

So we now know location coding systems can work in a database, again, contradicting what you said previously

Do we? Or we know An Post attempted adding loc8 code and decided against it

Maybe you've just proven it wasn't workable in a database as it was never used or promoted by An Post and obviously the geo directory users weren't actually asking for it

yuloni

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yuloni

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ukoda

yuloni wrote: »

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Im a geo directory user, I've never seen or been offered loc8 code

yuloni

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yuloni

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a65b2cd

yuloni wrote: »

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That's hard to understand. How could An Post have added LOC8 to GeoDirectory without the consent of LOC8 and how could they have submitted it as part of their tender without having brought LOC8 in as a partner? Surely LOC8 have the ownership of their own code?

yuloni

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a65b2cd

yuloni wrote: »

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But why are LOC8 only announcing it now, were LOC8 part of the An Post tender that got second to Capita?

yuloni

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ukoda

yuloni wrote: »

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The company I work for has access and I've used it, but no I don't work in direct mail

we have done some work on address prompting with one of our divisions

SpaceTime

There's absolutely nothing wrong with lobbying hard in public and in full view using PR in the media.

It's the cleanest type of lobbying possible and "fair do's" to the guy for rolling it out successfully and continuing to promote it very hard despite of the tendering situation.

That's what being an entrepreneur is all about!

If media outlets run stories based on his press releases etc, that just means they're finding them to be interesting. You can "spam" media outlets all you like but they don't have to run anything.

ukoda

SpaceTime wrote: »

There's absolutely nothing wrong with lobbying hard in public and in full view using PR in the media.

It's the cleanest type of lobbying possible and fair does to the guy for rolling it out successfully and continuing to promote it very hard despite of the tendering situation.

That's what being an entrepreneur is all about!

And like I said, he needs to refocus as there could still be a place for loc8, putting all his efforts into a hate campaign will only hinder the future of loc8

a65b2cd

yuloni wrote: »

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This is like a Poirot with the plot thickening as we see the end, I wonder if Sam submitted a tender with Eircom - would have brought new life to phone directories and they could have phoned addresses to deliver the code!!

Avada

yuloni wrote: »

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I may seem like a 'new poster', I'm not. And I know a lot more about that than you do, trust me

yuloni

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ukoda

SpaceTime wrote: »

If media outlets run stories based on his press releases etc, that just means they're finding them to be interesting. You can "spam" media outlets all you like but they don't have to run anything.

They are not tho, they are running articles on eircode and he's hijacking the comments section on their website, I haven't seen loc8 mentioned in an artilce about eircode recently