About Us

A small research team at the University of Bonn, Ionut (Johnny) Andone, Konrad Blaszkiewicz, Mark Eibes and assistant professor Alexander Markowetz were to study big data. Yet, there was no data available; only Google, Facebook, and Yahoo had access to such data. The team would have to collect its own data set. At the same time, smartphones changed the world and caused much concern. Combining these observations, the researchers designed the Menthal project. Joining forces with psychologist Christian Montag, they initiated the first large scale study of smartphone 'addiction'.

The Menthal app tracks phone usage, computes in-depth analysis, and provides feedback to the user: “Your personal information scale for Android”. With approval of the institutional review board, the collected data remains on the Menthal servers, for academic analysis. Since its launch in 2014, Menthal has received massive press attention and attracted >700.000 participants. It now constitutes the largest data set of human behavior available to academic research collected through academic efforts. This dataset is for academic purpose only, and remains at the University of Bonn.

Over time, numerous researchers and corporations worldwide have asked to use Menthal technology for their own projects. Murmuras caters to these needs. Our focus lies especially on individual researchers without dedicated IT-budgets. Ideally, any MSc student should be able to run even extensive experiments directly on our platform. Larger research initiatives or corporate clients naturally enjoy any level of collaboration and customization.

The company name originates from the term “murmuration”, the complex flocking behavior displayed by starlings. Similarly, Murmuras studies the dynamics of human behavior on a large scale.