linger

Linger is an AI-powered nostalgia app where friends create shared memory collections. It turns photos, journals, and voice notes into stories, recaps, and lasting memories.

Comment

Inspiration

Linger is an AI-powered collaborative memory capsule designed to help people preserve meaningful moments, revisit previous versions of themselves, and reflect on how their lives and relationships change over time.

The idea was inspired by writing a letter to your future self. Someone might write one before starting university, describing what they are nervous about, what they hope will happen, and who matters to them. Years later, opening that letter is meaningful not only because they remember what they wrote, but because they can see how much they have changed.

Linger brings that same experience to photos, letters, voice memos, and shared memories, helping people preserve not only what happened, but who they were when it happened.

What it does

Users can create personal memories with written reflections, dates, locations, and multiple photos on this web application. They can also create collaborative collections with friends, partners, or family members, allowing everyone to contribute their own photos and perspectives to a shared scrapbook.

Google Gemini analyzes memories within a collection and groups related moments into larger events based on their dates, locations, titles, and descriptions. It then generates event titles, themes, and scrapbook-style sticker suggestions.

Over time, Linger brings forgotten moments back to life through scheduled reminders, spontaneously resurfaced photos, and a Google Gemini-powered yearly Wrapped. "Linger Wrapped" analyzes everything from photos and letters to voice memos, revealing your busiest month, your year as a colour and season, your personality as a drink, your memories in one word, the shape of your year, and a final reflection on how you remember it.

How we built it

We built Linger using:

  • Next.js 15
  • React
  • TypeScript
  • Tailwind CSS
  • Supabase
  • PostgreSQL
  • Google Gemini API

Supabase powers authentication, collaborative collections, and our PostgreSQL database. We implemented secure database functions and Row Level Security to ensure users can only access collections they're a part of.

Challenges we ran into

As beginner full-stack developers, one of our biggest challenges was learning an entirely new tech stack while building the project. We had to quickly understand Next.js, Supabase, authentication, PostgreSQL, database design, and AI integration, learning many concepts for the first time and immediately applying them.

Working under a 36-hour deadline meant constantly switching between reading documentation, debugging issues, and implementing new features. While it was challenging, it pushed us to become much more comfortable with full-stack development and taught us how quickly we can learn when building something we're passionate about.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • Built a complete AI-powered full-stack application in under 36 hours.
  • Designed a collaborative platform where multiple users can preserve memories together.
  • Successfully integrated Google Gemini to identify meaningful themes, connections, and personal growth across users’ memories.
  • Learned and implemented authentication, PostgreSQL, and secure backend development using Supabase.
  • Created a scrapbook-inspired experience centered around nostalgia rather than social media.
  • Didn't stress/binge eat too much over the course of building this project.

What we learned

One of the biggest lessons we took away from this hackathon was that inspiration is often closer than you think.

Instead of searching for a problem to solve, we looked at our own lives and asked what we wished could be different. We realized how many meaningful memories quietly disappear and rot away into camera rolls, and that became the foundation for Linger.

Building something we're genuinely passionate about made learning an entirely new full-stack stack feel exciting rather than intimidating. We discovered that the fastest way to grow as developers is to build products you'd be excited to use yourself.

What's next for linger

  • Add customizable profiles with an avatar, a personalized gradient image, and thoughtful prompts that encourage users to share memories.
  • Allow users to choose between three original avatar options.
  • Deploy Linger so friends, couples, and families can begin creating shared collections together.
  • Add the option to include and embed songs/albums as a memory.

Built With

Share this project:

Updates

Submission history