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Show HN: I suck at remembering names, so I built an app to help
- tomasien 13y agoTommy - creator here. I'd love any ideas about how the app can help you exchange and remember names better - but to start, it indexes by Time and by Location, so you if you remember where and/or when you met somebody, this can help you remember them! I built it for myself, but some friends helped me make it into something anyone can use. Looking forward to the feedback! ANDROID USERS - if you like the concept id love to hear from you, if it seems people want it I'd love to make an Android version
- taeric 13y agoQuiz game. Put up a picture of the person, and see if I can get their name.
- janjongboom 13y agoAdding a photo of business card to go with it plus a small note? At the moment I scribble on his/her business card why a person I meet is important and send a follow up later based on that info.
- tomasien 13y agoPhotos were a little to high-input for me to implement in the first version - wanted to give people something stupid simple, but finding a way to get photos in there without a lot of effort by the user (taking a picture of someone you just met is weird) would be amazing.
- CraigJPerry 13y agoI just switched to an Android phone so apologies if this is old news, but as i make a call to people it pops up their last Facebook status on the dialer screen. I can appreciate this may sound like a total waste of time but i've been grateful of it so many times now! The effect is almost like my phone could read my mind and it's saying something like "ohh, you're going to talk to so-and-so? Well here's something current to talk about!"
- InAnEmergency 13y agoFor a long time my friend's last Facebook status was that his dog had died. Really depressing.
- cedsav 13y agoJust installed it and gave it a quick spin. My first issue is that I can't change the location beyond the local area, so I can't add people that I met a couple days ago in a different city. I understand that ideally, you want to add people right away while you remember their name, but in practice I'm not going to pull my phone right after we've been introduced.
- tomasien 13y agoYeah I agree that's a problem.
- wodenokoto 13y agoThis app is great. It doesn't support the phonetic spelling fields, though. It also needs email and note fields. When clicking a contact from the left-hand menu, it doesn't show the location. So there is lot's of room for development, but this start is sleek and extremely handy! I have already paid for an app that only does half of this one, and I am willing to pay again to get a fuller set of features! My personal hack for helping remember people is I use the company field as a tag. So people I meet in a bar will get the bar name in that field, people from school will get the school name, people from work, will get work name, clubs etc. The nice thing about this is you can search for company name, so I can just type in "study group" and I get all the contacts in my study group up as a result.
- kylelibra 13y agoRapportive is another app that people might find useful if they have this sort of problem. It is a plugin for gmail that pulls in social media profiles to attach a name to a face when emailing with someone. http://rapportive.com/ http://rapportive.com/
- henryaj 13y agoDamn. I was thinking of building something like this! (More specifically, I imagined the UI flow would involve getting the person to take a photo of themselves.) Seriously, this is a great idea.
- tomasien 13y agoThanks I really hope you keep sending feedback as you use it!
- reddit_clone 13y agoIt may all be moot when(if) Google glass get popular. I expect an info-bubble will appear when you see someone through the glasses and tilt your head in an inquiring manner.
- Etab 13y agoNice work. My first reaction was, "Huh? Why not just use your phone's built-in Contacts?" But then thinking about it for a minute and watching the very helpful video demo on the homepage... I like how you can open the app and start entering info. Much better than fiddling through Phone or Contacts app. Really nice touch on including the location. Seriously -- good job, Tommy!
- tomasien 13y agoHey thanks! I'm sure a lot of people will have the same initial reaction - it's a very simple app that does, what I thin are, some very powerful things.
- chromaton 13y agoMy current system is a plain text file that I can open with one tap on my phone's home screen. I started keeping track of the people I met after reading How to Win Friends and Influence People. This might be a step up, thanks!
- tomasien 13y agoHope it helps you out!
- jlsync 13y agoI've got the same problem, the app I built http://Big.first.name/ http://Big.first.name/
- tomasien 13y agoA different side of the same problem!
- jonaldomo 13y agoI love the screencast on the site. Is there a tool you used to get that going?
- tomasien 13y agoIs there ever! I used Reflector to mirror onto my screen, Quicktime to screen record my laptop, then MPEG Streamclip to crop it, then an online converter to convert to OGV for Firefox!
- Brajeshwar 13y agoOther good apps doing somewhat similar stuffs; * http://evernote.com/hello/ http://evernote.com/hello/ * http://www.refresh.io/ http://www.refresh.io/
- tomasien 13y agoEvernote Hello was my inspiration for this actually! I really, really disliked it very, very much and I'm a big Evernote fan. It needs to be simpler, IMO - I want to drive user input toward 0 if I can, let the app do the work. Thanks for sharing! I haven't seen refresh.io
- jasonlotito 13y agoJust want to back up your statement. Evernote Hello is one of those "Wow, that's awesome to look at" but was painful to use. To much work and effort for what needs to be a fast and simple thing.
- tomasien 13y agoThanks! Hope you like High Five better.
- dalore 13y agoI had an idea for a similar app, perhaps you can incorporate my idea into yours. My idea was when you write down their name, it also saves the available wifi mac addresses it sees in the vicinity. Then when you see someone again somewhere else you can look at the app for names that might be them (based on the visibility of wifi mac addresses). The theory is that people carry a phone on them that is unique and is often in wifi mode trying to make a connection which broadcasts the mac. So when you record a contact, one of the visible mac address might be them. In a new place it sees what mac addresses are around and loads up your contact list based on what addresses were visible at the time.
- tomasien 13y agoI'm not sure I follow - what information would the wifi signals nearby where you met them give you? Or would it be that hopefully they have their phone again when you see them, and it will know who they are that way?
- dalore 13y agoMost people will have their phone with them. So the app will use the id's it can currently see vs the one it saw when it recorded the contacts it will cross reference and show you possible contacts.
- marknutter 13y agoThe best way to remember people's names doesn't require an app or any technology to speak of. When you meet someone, key in on their most unique, memorable physical feature or personality quirk. Come up with a quick story or catch phrase that revolves around that feature. The weirder the feature and the story, the more likely you are to remember their name. For instance, you meet John. John's eyes seem like their closer together than most people's eyes are. So you could say to yourself "John, John, stared at his nose for too long". Every time you see John and his funny close-together eyes, you'll remember the story you made up and thus remember his name. Once you get good at this you'll never forget another person's name. It works like a charm. I find it helps to make the stories especially strange or even offensive. The more of a caricature you can create in your mind about them the better. Just don't accidentally say what you're thinking out loud :)
- IanCal 13y ago> For instance, you meet John. John's eyes seem like By the start of the second sentence I've already forgotten the name.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- nsxwolf 13y agoThis is my problem too. When someone introduces themselves to me, I can feel their name slipping out of my brain seemingly before they've even finished saying it. An app would not help me. "Hello, I'm..." "Wait! Hang on! Let me launch this app... ok, go ahead!"
- _mulder_ 13y agoI know just what you mean. Often, when meeting people for the first time, there is so much else going on to take in and remember (their company/job/what I'm going to ask them/what they're asking me/the name of the person next to them) that the name just drops out of my head instantly.
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- networked 13y agoGood idea. Do make an Android version! Also consider letting the user add photos and custom fields to contacts (those could range from "research interests" to "hair color" to "college class" to "favorite drink" and so on), not just an unstructured, unsearchable mess called "notes". If you do decide to support custom fields do not force every contact to have every kind of field. -- However, (and I think I speak for a lot of people when I say this) what I'm really waiting for is the obvious "ultimate" solution to this problem: an augmented reality device and app combo that would show people's names hovering above their heads. Making the names "glanceable" would make a huge difference and there would be potential for a lot for extensions. Add research/technological interests in highly visible large letters and conferences suddenly get a lot more interesting; add "going to <city name>" and it's a hitchhiking app; add "single" and it's a dating app (use at your own peril); add selectable multilingual subtitles (e.g., at an official speech) and it's a live translation app, etc. I wonder if this could somehow be made viable without advanced augmented reality glasses.
- sillysaurus2 13y agoan augmented reality device and app combo that would show people's names hovering above their heads. Being able to tag people with whatever phrase you wanted would be hilarious.
- networked 13y agoFor a darker turn add a friend or foe identification system to that and it could become very useful for all sorts of gang activities.
- theboss 13y agoWait? These are TheCitySwig guys? Just to let you know your last website was so horribly insecure. It was like a whois who of Owasp Top 10 issues. Just letting you know in case you build something like that again... On topic of WeHighFive, I think it is a stupid idea. Takes one more step away from the paradigm of 'face-to-face' communication. At the very best, you're saving 30 seconds of time writing the text message, and wasting 3 minutes looking through all the texts you have to remember the person's name. Either ask the person their name again or say it a couple times in your head when you first meet them. With your app, when I re-meet someone, I have to look at my phone and figure out who they are again.
- tomasien 13y agoI'm sure it was our security issues that sunk us. Thanks for the feedback.
- ScottWhigham 13y agoDownvoted for the unnecessary negativity x2. Fine, you think it's a stupid idea - just move on and close the tab then. Your opinion is just that: one person's opinion. If you want to offer the guy feedback on his app, go for it. But there's just no need to comment on HN on every app/idea you don't like/hate/think-is-stupid with "I think it is a stupid idea." Surely you have better ways to spend your time (as do I).
- theboss 13y agoHa. Thanks. Isn't the point of this to save time or remember someone's name. Actually think about how your interaction with another person would go and how this app fits into that....It makes the interaction awkward and you probably won't even find their text message in time (your messages screen is a most recently used list...the message will be buried). Where is the plus side? I think the idea is stupid. If they like they are free to prove me wrong and show me it is a good idea. edit: I think sugar coating opinions so they have to be positive is pointless. Maybe me saying the app is stupid helps them realize some problem with their app that helps them improve it and make it much better (and then prove me wrong). If we were to Sugar coat all feedback then the feedback of horrible products will be indistinguishable from good products which makes it pointless.
- speedyrev 13y agoHow about a text field that allows you to write something about them. "Dude with weird hair, works for Widgets Inc. Said he was divorced but had a daughter in college." Then make that info available when he calls me.
- tomasien 13y agoLove it. Almost put that in there for the first version, but we were intent on making this MVP
- acallwood 13y agoI think Speedyrev2 hit it on the head. A notes section makes too much sense. "Cute girl, bitchy freind, etc etc". That functionality makes it even more interesting than it already is.
- msane 13y agoHow does it work? I'm reluctant to click to try it out because the mobile page didn't explain enough about it / don't know what I would be getting.
- tomasien 13y agoYou add contacts to your phone and it adds them based on where you met them and when you met them. You can also send a really easy text back to them with your information auto-populated. Then, if you remember where or when you met somebody, you can more efficiently remember their names! Check out the non-mobile site, it has a really quick video that shows it.
- tomasien 13y agoHey whoa - did this get flagged and booted from the front page? Any reason?
- rafaelordaz 13y agoI like the simplicity of the app, just the right number of field. I couldn't find a suitable name for the location I was. Can I edit the location name? Where is the app getting the location names? (Maps, Google Maps, foursquare?)
- tomasien 13y agoFoursquare. I'm going to add a field where you can just make a new location on the spot so you can call it anything you want - "Joe's Party" for instance. Whatever would be helpful for you. That'll be at least one of and possibly the only thing in the next update.
- tomasien 13y agoDid this just get UN-flagged? It's back on the front page now. Anyone ever see this happen before? That's pretty weird in my experience.
- discardorama 13y agoI used to be bad at names. Now I've become somewhat better. What's helped is: when I hear their name, I say it back to them: once loud (as in, "Hi John! Nice to meet you."), and several times after that in my mind ("that's John, I just met him"). I'll revisit his name a few times with increasing delays in between, and after a couple of iterations, it's baked in. Another thing that helps: if you notice something weird, latch on to it immediately. It could be anything: something he's wearing or about his voice or his looks (a guy I met recently had a Facebook style t-shirt with a thumbs down and "meh" instead of the 'like'; I made a note of it, and now, even a couple of weeks later, associate him with that t-shirt). These techniques have helped me remember names of up to 20-25 new people in a night of socializing.
- purplelobster 13y agoSpaced repetition at work. Works great for me too, whenever I actually remember to do that, but sometimes I'm just caught off guard and instantly forget their names, but I'm not too embarrassed to ask again if I think I'll run into this person again.
- henryaj 13y agoHey, this doesn't work in the UK, despite being on the UK iTunes Store - it won't accept a UK phone number (it's too many digits).
- tomasien 13y agoOH hey I did absolutely not think of that. International numbers are 11 digits is that right? Or what is it?
- gbl08ma 13y agoDepends on the country. But really, why do you need to know? Just set a high limit, like 20 or 30 digits.
- tomasien 13y agoThere's a UX thing that is really nice right now that is limiting the number of characters, it does a button animation when and drops the keyboard when you're done filling out the contact. I'd like to find a way to keep it, but maybe I'll just do an international version that doesn't have that and set the limit to whatever.