

Facebook is Great for Dead People - cormiston
http://www.craigormiston.com/post/5606512383/facebook-is-great-for-dead-people

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ma2rten
I work for a Dutch social network. We introduced In Memoriam status for member
who passed away. The family members can ask for it. We will then show their
date of death on their profile and won't send out birthday notifications and
things like that anymore.

Here is an article about it: [http://thenextweb.com/eu/2011/03/23/dutch-
social-network-hyv...](http://thenextweb.com/eu/2011/03/23/dutch-social-
network-hyves-adds-in-memoriam-status-for-deceased-users/)

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cormiston
I think this is a great idea! Facebook could use this functionality.

You can declare certain people on Facebook "family members." Perhaps you could
assign those people certain permissions to control your profile in specific
use cases, like death.

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meterplech
This seems like it would be a bad thing for 1000memories. They need to show
why they are a better platform for memories than Facebook. I can definitely
see advantages to them- seems a bit classier to me at least. But why they are
better than Facebook for this purpose should probably be the focal point of
their marketing.

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rudyadler
I'm a co-founder of 1000memories. One of the motivations for starting the site
was a bad personal experience on Facebook after losing a friend. My friend's
page got memorialized after a week, and all of his wall content was hidden. In
response, three group pages were then created, and the experience became
fragmented and disjointed.

I don't think of using FB as a memorial as necessarily bad or good; the truth
it's somewhere in between and varies by individual. The problem for FB stems
from the fact that it was never designed for this behavior. A vast majority of
deaths on FB are never reported, and those profiles stay in the viral loop.
Those that are reported put FB in the awkward position of being referee of the
deceased's identity.

Ultimately, I was dissatisfied with allowing FB determine how we, as friends
and family, were going to remember my friend's life. I don't like that his
jokey profile photo is now stuck there forever. I think we can do better. But
beyond FB, the reason I'm excited about building a platform for memories is
that the Internet in general does a bad job speaking in the past tense. We are
focused on providing tools to help people tell and preserve the stories of
their loved one's lives.

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cormiston
Rudy,

I think what your team is doing is very noble. You are absolutely correct,
Facebook was not tailored to this kind of activity. We need a real platform to
memorialize others and - more importantly to the average user - a place where
we can memorialize OURSELVES. Mortality is a big issue and we all want to be
preserved for eternity in a positive light. Facebook does not give us control
over this postmortem public image.

As others have pointed out, 1000memories sits outside of mainstream networks.
It asks users to go out of their way to memorialize and interact with the
deceased on a platform beyond their daily traffic. Perhaps not a barrier to
entry issue, my guess is that 1000memories has a retention issue. How do you
keep people coming back after their first visit?

Is there a way 1000memories could better tie in social media and their
networks? An obviously example would be to pull a user's Twitter feed into the
mix of memories. Family and friends could rank the most memorable tweets and
promote certain aspects of the deceased's published life. The same concept
applies to blogs, Flickr photos, and Facebook updates.

To win social media integration, the deceased party would need to give
1000memories permission to connect with social media accounts pre-passing and
regulate the content that can be shared. 1000memories could market to the
living to set up an account that "gives you control of the memories you leave
behind." A "will" for postmortem digital image.

I would use a service that offered me the ability to control my image
postmortem.

~~~
rudyadler
Agreed, it gets really interesting when we bring it around to ourselves. It's
difficult to import digital property without expressed permission, but I think
the space will evolve a lot over the next few years and create a lot of
opportunities for story-telling and narrative.

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tgrass
My exgirlfriend passed away a year and half ago. My last words to her a year
before she died were cruel and ugly and consequently I didn't hear from her
family about her death, but learned of it from an online obituary of a small
town paper.

I was not friends with her on facebook (our relationship predated it), and so
I cannot tease out our memories there. But the loss remains and I find myself
returning to her obituary every few weeks.

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zhoutong
The tone of this article is pretty strange. Is Facebook really a great thing
for dead people? Or is it simply ironic to have dead people's profiles being
more active than living people's?

Anyway, I agree that Facebook shouldn't suspended dead people's profiles (and
they can't technically). Social networking account is a part of one's life,
just like a diary, a photo, or anything memorial. It shouldn't be cleared
away.

~~~
michaelaiello
Don't want to be spammy here but we recently asked quite a few folks "what do
you want to have happen to your on-line accounts when you pass away" and there
was a split for many of them. Some people want their accounts
suspended/deleted when they pass, some want them left alone, some want them
passed on to their families.

[http://www.blog.lifeensured.com/account-handling-after-
death...](http://www.blog.lifeensured.com/account-handling-after-death-survey-
results)

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cormiston
Mike - very transparent and noble of you to post this survey! Thanks.

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zethraeus
>In a world that hardly prays anymore, Facebook may be the next best thing.

That's a scary thought.

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cormiston
I agree, a very scary thought indeed.

I'm sure there's website out there where you can write prayers out and publish
them into the abyss. But when it comes to speaking to ancestors or the
deceased, why not?

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codeup
Did you notice the image of the gravestone? The inscription has a (not so)
subliminal message.

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cormiston
Clever observation, though I'm not sure I intended the subliminal message. I
have mixed feelings about Facebook's longterm value and scope, but I cannot
deny how powerful this network is. Read more of my thoughts on it here:
[http://www.craigormiston.com/post/4910698242/will-
facebook-r...](http://www.craigormiston.com/post/4910698242/will-facebook-
rule-the-future-of-social)

~~~
codeup
The "subliminal message" remark was somewhat tongue-in-cheek. Calling the
inscription a Freudian slip might have been more accurate...

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lambada
Interestingly Facebook will let relatives 'memorialise' a persons profile
after they are deceased. It's not well known, but I wonder if the features it
removes undermine the point this article is making.

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cormiston
I am not aware of this feature. Do you have a link or any info to share on it?

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bumbledraven
Help Center > Privacy > Privacy: Deactivating, Deleting, and Memorializing
Accounts <https://www.facebook.com/help/?page=842>

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BasDirks
I find the whole affair disgusting. The internet is not the right medium for
every aspect of your life.

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cormiston
I agree, the internet is not the right medium for every aspect. But I do think
it has a certain level of accessibility and mobility real life cannot offer.

My grandfather's gravestone is in Pueblo, Colorado a thousand miles away in a
town I have few reasons to visit. If I had a digital library of memories, I
could connect with him more regularly than every 15 years. But he was pre-
internet and I have no access to these things. I am stuck with memories in my
head, which fade in time (one of the tribulations of being human).

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paulnelligan
True, you can't care about privacy when you're dead!

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cormiston
But you can certainly care about it BEFORE you are dead :)

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paulnelligan
my point exactly!

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ignifero
I noticed that there isn't an app where you can make your "digital will" i.e.
describe how you want your profile to look once you 've kicked the bucket.
Isn't there a market for that? Also, dead people's profiles may be ok for the
first months, but after a long time it becomes kind of creepy seeing people
long dead. Do they keep the profiles forever?

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michaelaiello
Hi, I'm the founder of LifeEnsured. We're that app. We let you do define what
you would like to have happen to your on-line accounts after you pass.
<http://www.lifeensured.com>.

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ignifero
Love your "social security death detection" feature. Hope it doesn't have any
false positives

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michaelaiello
Thanks. We hope so too. End of life validation is a tricky problem we think
we've become good at solving by combining several validations.
[http://www.blog.lifeensured.com/end-of-life-validation-on-
li...](http://www.blog.lifeensured.com/end-of-life-validation-on-line-a-
tricky-problem)

