Humin | Keeping in Contact
Humans have a tendency to forget things easily, especially when it comes to meeting new people and remembering old friends from the past. Technology helps us keep in contact and up-to-date with many – if not all – those we have met, thanks to sites like Facebook and LinkedIn. Our phone contacts however does none of that. Our phonebook only holds so much information that our contact is reduced to just a name and number. Humin looks to be the app to fix that.
“The idea of Humin is that we kind of lost context in our technology. People are all about how you know each other and miss that completely especially in the address book. So, what if we could rebuild technology to think about people more like we did? In a contextual way, in a way that makes sense,” says Daniel Pourbaba, Co-Founder of Humin. “In a way that a human remembers and more natural. Throw away the way we’ve been doing. Completely reimagine it from scratch. And that’s what we build with Humin. When you open a feature, it’s looking at what makes sense in a more human way and not just in a technical way. Who’s that guy? How’s she part of my life? How are we related? What’s the commonality between us? We built it in a more human way.”
Contacts on our phones only displays a number and a name. Humin expands upon that and adds information regarding where they work, location, email address, phone number and more. Similar to a profile on Facebook, users can now have more information on those they connect with. No need to worry about figuring why the person’s face looks familiar or where you met them for the first time anymore.
The slick interface makes it easier to search for friends and collect all the information needed from each contact. No need to search by alphabetical order anymore. Search by work or when you first met each other. The idea of Humin is simply to remember contacts how human’s remember. Each person remembers a person in different ways and Humin looks to make sure we find the people like a human does.
Every smartphone provides a simple solution on keeping track of the people we met, but it never truly lets us remember and stay connected to them. Humin allows contacts to easily know who’s in the area and reminds you of those who are even just visiting the same area. Friend forgot to tell you they were flying into town? Don’t worry, Humin will notify you and help give you a reason to meet for a drink later that night or grab some lunch.
Humin uses the network to keep contacts and their information up-to-date, but the app is able to work in offline mode as well. At most a picture may or may not show up, but all the information is stored on the phone and available whenever you need it.
But with all this information, some people may be afraid of their privacy. Nothing to worry about thankfully, the team at Humin didn’t forget about your privacy concerns either.
Daniel Pourbaba stated, “Privacy is a major, major thing for us. The way we built this is pretty remarkable from a privacy standpoint. Your contacts is the most intimate part of your phone. Bar none, there’s nothing more intimate in your entire device than your contacts. They are yours. They are people you met throughout your life. The way you choose to call them on your phone, that’s very unique. We’re going to build this system that interacts with your contacts, it has to be private. We can’t be the company that says, ‘Hey, trust us.’ We actually have to be a company that says, ‘We don’t have access to any of it.’
Humin wants nothing to do with any of the information and even named their privacy system “#HuminRights” to ensure their users who worry about their information being given away is safe.
The app does act more as a social media profile than a contact list. All the information about the people you know can be found – most of the time – on a social media platform. However, the difference Humin looks to make is keeping you connected with those in the contact list.
The contact list became more than just a name and a set of numbers. It became more personal thanks to the app. Technology is supposed to help make our lives a little bit easier and Humin does just that.
Get an early beta access for iOS users now. For those with Android phones, don’t worry as the team is working on an Android app as well.
