hello, memo-memo

Say this out loud:

Now go to memo-memo.co and type in those words, 'mountain banana'. (I'll wait.)

Congratulations, you're a memo-memo user! Welcome.

Introducing memo-memo

memo-memo is word of mouth for the web.

It turns any link into a couple of memorable words, like 'mountain-banana'. Think of it as a QR code you can say out loud or write down. Memos are free for anyone to share and follow. Creators and brands can use it to get people to links that can't be clicked.

There's nothing to scan, no app, no account, just two or three words to get you or your audience to where you want them to go.

Right, but why?

I'm sure you've noticed URLs are okay to click on a web page, but beyond that are long, technical and impossible to remember. And QR codes, great technology that they are, need a camera or a phone. You need to be standing right next to them, and you also need to trust where they point.

Links are core to anything you want to share. They're fine on a web page or in an app, but they're tricky on podcasts, radio, TV, YouTube, TikTok, posters, the side of a bus, and in conversation. (Basically, they're inadequate anywhere other than on the web.)

Because of this, your favourite podcaster tells you there's a link in the show notes, and brands resort to "Search for this …", but these tactics either fail or hand traffic to competitors who bid on the same keywords.

There’s good evidence that our memories work well with a small number of “chunks” of information. In 1956 the psychologist George A. Miller published a famous paper arguing that we can hold onto about seven chunks in immediate memory. Chunks could be digits, letters or whole words. Nelson Cowan later revised that limit down to about four, but the principle stands. A six-digit one-time password from your authenticator app is about as much as most of us can carry from phone to screen, and it doesn’t last. In a classic 1959 experiment, people forgot most of a short string of letters within 18 seconds when they were distracted. A familiar word is one chunk. It carries a lot more information than a digit, and it can be pictured, said out loud and passed on. Two or three words sit comfortably within our memory's sweet spot, which is why you'll probably still remember “mountain-banana” tomorrow.

How does it work?

Glad you asked. It's super simple.

To follow a memo you see or hear, go to memo-memo.co, and type in the words. You just did that up there. There's no account needed to follow.

To create a memo, go to memo-memo.co.

An account is optional when you create. Joining is a good idea because you can manage the memos you make and do things like password protect them.

memo-memo is about way more than links. You can choose from loads of different things to share, including bios, social profiles, messages and events. You can create self-destructing messages, a time capsule and tags for your pets and possessions.

You can also do things like make predictions, which seal your memo into the future, so you can prove to everybody that you were right all along.

mm/right-all-along

Add your memo and then share the words. Read them out on your podcast. Show them at the top of your YouTube video. Print them on a billboard. Pop one on your dog's collar so if Mutt gets lost you can be reunited easily. Share one over the phone.

That's it.

Which one are you?

You share things all the time. You want people to go to your social pages, or you're a networker and you want to share your bio and links. Maybe you run a little market stall and want to encourage people to buy your stuff online after they've enjoyed your product.

You read or heard a memo somewhere. It's easy to get to wherever that memo leads. Maybe you heard about an interesting new thingumybob on a podcast. Or your mate in the pub's made a prediction and you really don't think he'll be right.

You make audio or video. You're used to asking people to look in the show notes or in the description for merch, Patreon and episode links. But who reads the show notes?

You run campaigns. If it's not clickable, how do people get there? Buying search terms is compromised because your competitors are buying the same ones. Or you're trying to grab attention on the side of a bus and the person in that split second needs to know what to do.

Okay, let's talk about that finger

When you see the finger, don't forget to follow its command.

Use the mm/ mark so your link is recognisable at a glance. You can simply type it or you can use the official graphic.

To share a memo with your vocal cords, just say "memo-memo" and the words. Links work with your eyes closed.

Every memo gets a unique pair or triplet of words. The word list is deliberately built for memorability, and there are no homophones so each memo passes the say-it-down-the-phone test.

Bright yellow and knotted. Remember it!

Where memo-memo came from

One afternoon last year, I was walking along Piccadilly, across the road from St James's Church. Underneath some scaffolding a homeless guy was sitting with a cardboard note asking for money for his hostel stay. But I couldn't give him any because I don't carry any money. I never carry any money. And I thought, how many people actually carry money these days? How will this guy get any money? I wondered, why can't his bank account have a couple of words attached that he could write on his sign and then later, at home, I could give him a couple of quid? A bit like this:

Then, as things do, the idea percolated in my head. I realised that bank details were only one thing. Anything I needed to link to, but couldn't click on, had the same problem. Why wasn't there a super simple way of pointing somebody to something I wanted them to see?

In a frenzied week in the summer of 2025, I built about 75% of memo-memo. Originally it was just called link sharing idea, so I gave it a name. I did a bit of the branding work. That's where the yellow was born. I was super busy back then and had to move on to another project. But the idea was still lurking in there. And with a second wind, I picked it up again recently and knotted the finger. Now the whole thing works.

memo-memo is a bid for a new convention. It's more than just an app. A bit like hashtags or @handles, memo-memo will get more valuable the more people know about it and use it. And that, my friends, is a tricky startup challenge.

So I thought, what will make it spread? For starters, it must be free for anyone to share and follow memos. memo-memo mustn't track people. Analytics down the line? Maybe, but only to count visits. And since it's super useful for podcasters and YouTubers, I thought creators should come first because every read they make of their memo-memo words teaches the convention to thousands more people. I also happen to be in the UK, so that'll probably be where it first starts. But it's definitely not UK (or English) only.

What’s coming: Tools and additions for creators and brands, a way for AI assistants to follow memos on your behalf (an MCP service). "Hey assistant, can you book a table for two at memo-memo river mouse, tomorrow evening?" Plus webhooks, and visit counts that can tell people and agents apart.

I'm a product builder. As I said in my first blog post, publicity, being conspicuous, and anything that isn't building the nuts and bolts of the product or running the business are challenging. I need to figure out the right way to get the mm/ convention out there, and I want to start those conversations. If you think you can help, I'd love to chat.

Three asks

1. Make a memo, perhaps for your email address or one of your socials. If you're a creator, try it on one of the links you share.
2. If you can help me spread the convention, email me.
3. Tell at least one other person about memo-memo.