Have you ever attended a conference, was the new person in a club, or needed to remember crucial connections for a networking opportunity?  We’ve all been in the same place where a persons face looks familiar but we can’t remember their name.  If you’ve already met a person or need to smooch with a high powered executive, pulling our your phone to lookup their Twitter handle or name on Facebook might be a little embarrassing.

Stanford Rosenthal, local New Orleanian and Computer Science major at Washington University in St. Louis wants to help you with “I really should remember your name but I can’t for the life of me” syndrome.  “I just completed my first year at Wash U.  joining clubs and a fraternity, I found myself needing to learn a lot of names very quickly.  I looked all over for an app that would help me learn the names of people I am friends with on Facebook, but found nothing.  So I decided to create my own app.” says Mr. Rosenthal.

Out of his dilemma, Facerize was born: a web app that converts your online connections into flash cards to help you match names to faces.  As simple as it may should, there is a need to learn the names and faces for those people you come into contact with:

• Schools: Both students and teachers can use Facerize to learn the names of students and/or teachers.
• Conferences: Attendees can filter out people they want to meet at a conference and study their information beforehand.
• Businesses and Co-working: CEO's and new employees can learn the names of their workers and co-workers.
• Clubs: All sorts of clubs, from fraternities to book clubs, could benefit from Facerize.

Homepage of Facerize

The application uses a set of API calls from social networking websites (right now the app is only connected with Meetup.com but other social networking sites could be pulled in over time).  The app pulls in the users profile picture, name, and some biographical information.  The user is presented with a virtual card with the profile picture on the front.  Clicking the card flips it.  Clicking the X button keeps the card in the stack, and clicking the checkmark button removes the card from the stack.

Mr. Rosenthal says that there is still a lot of possibilities with the user interface but he wants to keep is as simple as possible and focus more on the backend.  “I want to implement algorithms that psychologists recommend for memorization techniques.  I think it's really important to have a simple interface that just works, with as little configuration as possible” explains Mr. Rosenthal.

Debuted at the July meetup of Net2NO, the app was demo and instantly received feedback on how it could be improved.  From the implementation of a quiz mode/study mode, a mobile app, integration into school systems for teachers, and ways to motorize the system by letting the users choose the picture that is displayed of themselves.  In the future, Facerize will support all popular networks and integrate with commercial and proprietary networks.