About

Why this exists

In a lot of our meetings something gets said, or comes to mind, that genuinely matters in the moment — and then it is gone. Written on the back of something and lost, or not written down at all.

I wanted somewhere to put those impressions that did more than store them. Something that would notice what I kept coming back to, and hand an old note back to me later, when it was useful again, rather than only when I went looking for it.

I built the first version for myself. Then it seemed likely that a good number of people in the community would use something like it, which is why it is worth doing properly rather than leaving it as a personal tool.

It is not made by a company and there is nobody to answer to about it. That is what the line under the name means: Built by the community, for the community.

What the name means

Noema is an old Greek word — νόημα, said noh-EE-ma. It comes from a verb meaning to perceive, or to understand. But it does not name the act of thinking. It names the thing thought: what perception leaves behind once it has happened.

That is what this is for. It does not keep your reading. It keeps what the reading left in you.

The old rhetoricians used the word for something else too — a saying put so briefly that its meaning only opens up later, on reflection. Anyone who has written down a few words and understood them properly months afterwards knows the feeling. That is more or less what the Inspiration feed is for.

How it is paid for

Most of Noema costs so little to run that it is free. The parts that cost money every time they are used — turning handwriting and speech into text — are paid for by the people who use them. That is the whole business model. There is no advertising, and nothing about you is sold to anyone, which would be difficult in any case given that I cannot read your notes.

Telling me it is wrong

If something is unclear, broken, or missing, that is worth knowing. The app has a "Send feedback" link in its settings that comes straight to me, or you can use the contact page.

Project by Lewis Francis, Lowestoft