
NYTimes on Facebook death, and why we created 1000Memories (YC S10) - Bretthuneycutt
http://1000memories.com/blog/8-nytimes-and-why-we-created-1000memories
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jacksoncarter
Cemeteries have endowment funds to ensure the land where people are buried
will remain land where people are buried. Sites like this have nothing of the
sort. I don't even see a business model.

Without something to guarantee people's memories will live long in the site,
you run the risk of their loved ones being taken from them twice. You didn't
even address this point on the first page, instead just start talking about
your nifty features.

You really need to think about how your startup is going to avoid death if you
are asking people to put their faith in you when they try to preserve memories
of their loved ones.

~~~
tptacek
Most newspapers already run services like this one. It's not a new idea. All
they're doing is making an internet-wide one. The business model? Sell it to
end-users or sell it to newspaper obit sections as a managed service.

I'm not sure I see the risk here. Cemeteries are carefully managed because
people care _a lot_ about how their remains are cared for. They don't have
anything resembling that level of concern over JPG's.

~~~
cmurphycode
Well, that's the trick, isn't it? You have to make people care enough about
their "digital remains" to want the service, but not enough to worry about the
risk. Will the new generation of techno-literate users find the happy medium
and make this startup successful?

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quickpost
My father passed away about a year and a half ago, and one of the things I did
was create a website for him where people could share their stories and
memories of his life. (<http://jimwhowell.com/>) I made it a day or so after
he died, and I had no idea what the response would be... I only knew I had to
do something to try to capture my memory of him. We ended up getting well over
100 stories on the site, and having all these memories of him has meant so
much to me and my family in dealing with our loss.

I think what you are doing with 1000Memories.com will have a similar effect in
touching peoples lives and I hope that you have a lot of success with it.
Thanks for creating this.

~~~
Bretthuneycutt
Thanks very much for your words of encouragement. If you were willing, we'd
love to speak to you about your experience with your father's web page. Feel
free to email me at brett [dot] huneycutt [at] gmail

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fleaflicker
May be a good idea to register 100memories.com and redirect, that's an easy
typo to make.

Do you have a plan to handle fraudulent submissions? I assume there's nothing
to prevent me from posting any memorial I want. Could be a problem if it gets
indexed quickly.

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JabavuAdams
Two very creepy typos on the main page:

 _Everyone holds a slither of someone’s life..._

I think you meant "sliver", not "slither".

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jonathanbgood
thanks for spotting this, we fixed it

~~~
JabavuAdams
... but added a new typo :)

Everyone holds a sliver of someone’s life and _the_ letting everyone share
those slivers can create a wonderful place to vividly remember someone.

Tip: proof-read a text backwards (word-by-word) to catch things that your
brain would normally gloss over.

~~~
Bretthuneycutt
wow! fixed that one too

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jgrahamc
_A common urge when someone passes is to want to do something to honor them;
be that planting a tree, naming a trophy or starting a foundation._

I'm not sure the Internet really makes those things easier. Seriously,
planting a tree is easier with the Internet?

I've thought a lot about my own death and what I want from the people who love
me is that they weep. I don't want some legacy implanted on the world as if I,
one of billions, deserves that. But I do want those around me to care, and to
express it. Seriously, if you are one of my loved ones and I'm dead then be
human and weep.

~~~
tptacek
I think about this every once in awhile, and as a husband and father of two,
I'd rather my family has a huge party and is happy for how lucky I've been and
how much fun I've had. I don't want people I like to have to weep.

~~~
jgrahamc
I see where you are coming from. I just don't want me loves ones constrained
by some phony dignity or decorum.

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sliverstorm
I don't think I could ever sleep well at night, knowing that I built a
business based upon on the death of others. In other words, I'll never work as
a coffin maker or at a funeral home.

No offense or judgement towards the 1000Memories people, I think it's a good
goal. That's just my own choice.

~~~
JabavuAdams
Could you build a business on helping to assuage others' grief?

~~~
sliverstorm
Thinking about it a bit further, if I was not involved in the funeral
proceedings that might help stem the self-loathing, so maybe.

I think essentially I'm just really against the high costs of death
proceedings. It should cost less money, not more, and the more services that
get tacked on the higher the cost gets.

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indigoviolet
The difficulty here is not in building software for a memorial page [although
I'm sure there is a lot of room for experimentation and improvement], but in
detecting that someone has passed away, and then handling all interactions
relating to that user with extreme sensitivity.

~~~
woodrow
Legacy Locker, while solving a different problem (how do you transfer your
online presence to your inheritors?), has a process to deal with this
involving death certificates and trusted verifiers:
<http://legacylocker.com/features/verifiers>

~~~
indigoviolet
Yeah, but on something like Facebook, people don't necessarily think of (or
prioritize, given the other pressing issues in their lives) informing the site
that someone has passed away.

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thingie
Well, a friend of mine died (he was about 20) last week and within few days,
somebody set up a memorial facebook group and it seems to work quite well, I
don't think that anybody feels any need for anything else. On the other hand,
nobody gave this any serious thought, he's still online on IRC, nobody turned
off his computer yet, I think… This bother me much more, if I just suddenly
died, what would happen with all my online stuff? 1000memories is just a
tombstone. I'd rather like to have some kind of dead men switch, a place to
put my passwords and keys for survivors. But I guess that we still have some
kind of old-fashioned offline services for the last wills :-)

~~~
blantonl
Well, I think you might have a new startup idea: track people that are dead
but are still online.

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zavulon
A friend of mine has been doing something similar for a while:
<http://www.forevermissed.com/>

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amichail
Why not chat with the dead via chatbots that capture their personality,
interests, knowledge, etc.?

Wouldn't this be a great way to remember people you care about?

~~~
sliverstorm
In other words, upload their conscious to the internet? If you can figure out
how, I'm game.

~~~
amichail
No, I don't mean that.

~~~
sliverstorm
I personally feel anything that's not THEM, or at least them to some arbitrary
precision, would simply serve as an always-there in-your-face reminder that
the person is gone.

If they were actually living on in the internet- not necessarily perfectly,
but enough to get people to buy it- that would help assuage grief, but we have
no idea how to do that yet.

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photon_off
Does 1000 memories cost money? What are the features?

I hate when sites make me create a log in when I know _nothing_ about them. It
is so irritating.

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c1sc0
I'm curious about something: is doing a full reprint of the NYT page like this
acceptable use? How's the conversion on that blog entry?

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zecg
(replace-regexp-in-string "reconnect with" "remember")

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Charuru
I'm always leery of a startup based on a platform like this, because Facebook
can easily easily take the ground out from under you.

There's also no early mover advantage or network effect (unlike say, admob),
so if facebook chooses to implement this it would be fatal.

~~~
naz
Facebook made status updates public but it didn't kill Twitter. I think
everyone overestimates Facebook's ability to kill companies.

~~~
grasshoper
Twitter is all about asymmetric 'relationships'. You can follow whomever you
want. This makes it fundamentally different from Facebook.

