

Show HN: Namerick - an app for people who forget names - scottyallen
http://namerick.com

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scottyallen
We built Namerick because we had a hard time remembering everyone we met at
meetups and hackathons. It's an iphone app to help you remember the names of
people you've just met. We used repetition and mnemonics modeled from memory
'athletes' and studies of the human memory.

Namerick was built by a team of six during a BeMyApp weekend app competition.
While we had everything pretty much working at the end of the weekend, we'd
remiss if we didn't add that we've added a few months of beta testing,
additional UX polish, and marketing efforts:)

We'd LOVE your feedback (and be eternally grateful if you'd be willing to
leave an app store review). The app is free for the next few days, and then
we'll likely switch it to $0.99 after that.

You can learn more about it, and see our awesome retro demo video (complete
with zero gravity cats) at <http://namerick.com>.

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jlees
I definitely have this problem, but perhaps not quite in the way the app is
solving. From the site - love the retro theme! - it seems that I can remember
names and associate them with mnemonic facts (such as a job title).

That's fine, but my big problem is associating the name with the _face_. I can
usually remember who the person is and what they do once I remember their name
(or they kindly tell me), but the moment of blankness when I meet them and
have no idea who they are is embarrassing and unprofessional.

I can't think of an obvious solution to this given that many people (myself
included) have unrepresentative profile photos on the 'net, though I've seen
'face memory' games work well when the photos are good.

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rufugee
I love it. Is there an Android version in the works?

My biggest problem with names would likely not be solved with this, although
it might help me become more disciplined. My problem is that I'm always so
wrapped up with sizing someone up and watching that person's expression and
body language that the name is lost to me in the initial exchange. Very
frustrating habit and very hard to break.

~~~
scottyallen
No Android version in the works just yet, but we've gotten lots of requests.

For what it's worth, I've personally found that having the intention to write
someone's name down in Namerick makes me more likely to remember in that
initial exchange. Not as technologically elegant, as say, universal audio
recording and transcription, but in practice it seems to still be a useful
life hack around this problem:)

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jpadvo
This looks amazing -- I've been needing something like this for a while. The
one piece of advice I'd give is to create some kind of backup and or export
feature. It's a little scary to think about putting so much valuable
information about my relationships into something that I can't get it back out
of.

Do you have any plans for this?

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pflats
It seems to back up to iCloud, for me at least.

~~~
scottyallen
Yes, iCloud should work right now, which solves the "what if I lose my phone
or get a new phone" concerns. Our backup/export features will be more focused
on the "I want to use my Namerick data in some other context" use case.

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askedrelic
Great idea, I've had something like this in my head for awhile too.

My initial thoughts would be: -custom groups or more groups; what group is
this person attached to. -change the "where" I met this person, for back
entering people. Everyone I'm entering the first time, right now, is off.
-some ability to record meeting that person again? You probably don't want to
turn this into a CRM, but having a history of when and where you met someone
would be helpful.

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jmjerlecki
Are the namericks normally that offensive? Is that a specific memory cue? I
would be interested to know if that is or not. For example I made one for my
friend Brooke and clicked generate namerick. The first two items that came up
were brooke bangs boys and brooke the Blower.

~~~
scottyallen
No, you have particularly bad luck:) I haven't seen any come up anywhere near
that explicit yet. The namericks are randomly generated from a list of words,
which sometimes leads to hilarity. That being said, mnemonics that are
slightly suggestive are more memorable than more boring mnemonics, since they
generate more vivid imagery in our heads, which is easier for our brains to
remember (we're very visual animals).

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RoyceFullerton
Free for next 3 days...why wouldn't I download it?

