Mobile Track-Anything App Wants Users to Say "Now I Nomie"

Inspired by the explosion of the mobile software market, Corbin decided to build a one-click tracker app that would allow him to monitor his good and bad thoughts, emotions and behaviors. It's called(pronounced as "know me"), and the whole point is for users to gain awareness of what they do each day and how this affects their lives.
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Brandon Corbin's own father identified him as a problem child when he was young. He found himself in trouble every day at school because he couldn't understand, remember or care about all the rules he was expected to follow.

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Therapists told him he needed to keep a "feelings journal" and track his moods so that over time he could understand his emotional patterns. Growing up in an era when doctors began diagnosing and prescribing attention disorder, Corbin was never quite able to truly track his habits.

Many years later, inspired by the explosion of the mobile software market, Corbin decided to build a one-click tracker app that would allow him to monitor his good and bad thoughts, emotions and behaviors. It's called Nomie (pronounced as "know me"), and the whole point is for users to gain awareness of what they do each day and how this affects their lives.

The way it works is quite simple. First, you decide what you want to track by choosing from preset options or creating your own trackers. Then, all you do is pull up the app and click the corresponding button each time you perform one of your tracked actions or when it's time to measure an attribute like mood or energy level. Nomie logs your activity each day and lets you view your totals; you can also compare data from one tracker against another to see how they correlate.

Watch Corbin's pitch to learn more about the app and its features:

A Low-Key App with Potential to Scale

Nomie is the first product of Happy Data, LLC, which Corbin founded in June 2014. At present it is a one-man show. Nomie appears to have been built without monetization as a priority, which makes sense if Corbin's motivations were mostly personal. It is free to download and lets you track 12 items for no charge. If you want more trackers, you can opt to pay for them: $3 for 20, or $5 for 50.

The software is currently in version 1.3 and has been downloaded between 1,000 and 5,000 times on Android devices. It is entirely self-funded and has yet to receive any investments, but this may change as a result of Corbin's efforts to increase awareness of the product.

Additionally, Corbin plans to add a Nomie Marketplace in the next update, including "Private Tracker Packs" that sound like they would be paid downloads and could allow him to partner with businesses to sell exclusive trackers.

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So It's Another Tracking App--What Makes It Different?

Self-monitoring is nothing new, as most people know what a Fitbit is (or own one). The "Quantified Self" social movement even has its own website, complete with a list of over 500 tools for translating your daily life into hard data.

The Fitbit and Garmin's vívo line of wristbands track physical activity, heart rate and sleep patterns; websites like Moodscope and MoodPanda help you assess your mood and share it with friends; HabitBull and Way of Life help you create good habits and break bad ones. There are even self-monitoring apps for conditions such as epilepsy and autism, and for tracking the behavior of young children in school or at home.

Why in the world do we need another product in the Quantified Self market? The argument lies in Nomie's intended use as a tool for self-discovery rather than self-regulation. You don't use Nomie to help you achieve a fitness goal or eliminate a bad habit so much as you use it to discover what your habits are and how they are related.

Does your caffeine consumption affect your quality of sleep? Is your mood better on days when you exercised? How many times a day do you check social media, and how does that affect your productivity? Are you drinking enough water each day?

These are the kinds of questions Nomie is intended to help you answer. It's about making you more aware of your own actions and the consequences they have, because awareness is the first step to making constructive changes.

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Will It Take Off?

It remains to be seen if Nomie's target audience will be large enough to sustain growth. Corbin doesn't seem to be preoccupied with getting rich off the app, although there are certainly clear paths to monetization. In addition to the aforementioned Nomie marketplace, he could simply charge users a small fee to download the app.

The more important question is whether users want a program that asks them to take such an honest, scrutinizing look at their lives, or if they simply have an obsession with turning their day into data points.

The author of a recent Guardian article lamented that technology like the Apple Watch and other fitness trackers prevent users from actively experiencing their own lives. Anti-datafication hold-outs should be pleased by Nomie, an app that uses technology to help its users truly know themselves better instead of merely increasing white noise.

Let's hope this is just the breath of fresh air Quantified Selfers and mobile users are looking for. If it is, then Nomie could scale up and gain huge popularity as the tracker app that helps you live your life intentionally, which is something everyone could use in an age when it's easy to become lost in all the data.

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