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Comment by sergiutruta | Hacker News Reader

why don't you post the idea here? I think the man behind the idea is the best to implement the idea, so posting it here doesn't look like a real threat, at least in my opinion...unless the idea is really brilliant :)

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Ok. Here's a list of features my startup would provide.

It would make it easy for you to:

-- Create an online memorial

-- Make it public; for the world to see

-- Make it private; just for friends and family

-- Collaborate with friends and family; create the memorial together

-- Collect and organize your memories, stories, videos and pictures

-- Save it forever.

Some notes:

This might sound a little morbid but people do this stuff when a relative or friend passes away. Why not make it easier?

My wife calls it MyDeadSpace. Funny gal. I don't plan on using that name.

[EDIT]

Sincere thanks for everyone's feedback. If anyone does have any other thoughts - feel free to email me (john at todotoh dot com) or continue commenting.

Judging by the lack of comments, does this idea fall in the realm of mediocrity?

I don't think the issue is one of mediocrity. I can certainly see the merit of your idea, but it all depends on execution. Would I use it? I don't think so. I know plenty of people who would, though, and if they created such a memorial for a friend of mine, I would be compelled to visit and add to it. So in a sense, it is viral, and as someone else mentioned, there is certainly a market for it.

So go for it. It doesn't seem like a super-complex idea involving crazy algorithms or anything. You are going to have to really consider design issues about how such a site should be navigated, if perhaps it should be linked with MySpace or Facebook or something so that friends can refer people to memorials on the site or something. Or come up with a different plan altogether.

The point is that it doesn't matter how good the idea is if you don't have a good design in mind and the motivation to make it happen. I think it would be great, but can you do it? (That's meant to be a motivational challenge in order to help get you started on it.)

The design also needs to take into account that the vast majority of customers for a memorial site will be older folks (I've seen enough memorial services being planned to know that it's the grandmothers and great aunts that do the work...everybody else is too wrapped up in their own grief to get anything done...maybe this is just in the matriarchal south, but I suspect it applies across the country). That's a really hard market to design for.

But, craigslist has shown that if you take a newspaper product and dump it onto the web with a perfect implementation (say what you will about craigslist and how ugly it is...but it's a beautifully functional ugly that's a joy to use), you'll get lots of users. Every day there are thousands of obituaries published. The paper gives you three or six or whatever lines for free, and you can pay for bigger ad-style layouts. Just like classifieds being really cheap for a few lines, but getting more expensive the more copy you write, you can remove the expense of extra copy and adding pictures.

So, taking something that's currently inconvenient (call the newspaper, spell the name three times, struggle with the family about who gets listed under "survived by", since you're running out of words, etc.) and making it convenient and free sounds like it'd be a winner. It's the "free" part that makes it hard to make money on. Who wants ads for home mortgages and crap all over their grandfather's obituary? But I dunno if people will pay for it.

Good analysis, but there is a catch. Newspapers already have readers. When people post in a newspaper, they want to get the word out. But if you create a web site specifically for this purpose, I doubt that people will read it often to check if someone they know had passed away. However, if a known online news service provides this as an extra feature, then people will figure out that they can get the word out by posting there.

Yes. All good points. Thanks guys - this feedback is very helpful.

people do this stuff when a relative or friend passes away

Why not change the concept a bit, i.e. "Create a Fan Page About Anyone"?

That way, you can encompass all kinds of people (both living and deceased, famous or not, people you know personally or not), whatever the situation.

Fantastic idea.

No sure why that was downvoted. I was sincere. I think it's a very nice angle on my original idea.

John, good luck with this project, regardless of which concept you use.

Thanks for the feedback. I think I'm still going to go with the memorial approach. Technically, this will be a cinch. The hard part is going to be getting the idea out there once I build it!

Hey, check out this cartoon: http://www.newyorker.com/humor/issuecartoons/2007/05/14/cartoons_20070507?slide=3

I think this dilutes the concept rather beyond the point of utility. A memorial site would need to foster a very specific mood and offer a few specific tools for this purpose.

Have you searched Google for "Online Memorial"? Plenty of people think this is a good idea. There are 3 paid placements at the top of the search results so I assume there's some money in it as well.

If you still want to go forward, make sure you are differentiated.

First impression: good idea because I haven't heard of something like that before.

After thinking about it: Good idea but won't create a big successful business for the same reason above. There are already several web sites that does that (search on Google like madanella suggested), and the fact that they are not well known is an indication that it's not a popular concept.

Having said that, you can still take something and make it successful if you manage to figure out the perfect combination of features and marketing ideas. Successful companies do that all the time, they take existing ideas that don't have much traction and make them better. Google didn't invent search, Apple didn't invent MP3 players, and Microsoft didn't invent operating systems.

A point to consider as well is that it's probably not appropriate to put ads on a memorial page. Some people will be sensitive to it. In that case, how would you recover the cost of hosting pages for very long periods of time?

I think the reason why they aren't popular is because they suck. The don't let you do the one thing that you'd really want to do when creating a memorial. They don't let you collaborate. If I was creating a memorial for someone I would want to solicit stories and memories from the person's friends and pull them together to form a story.

First of all, 20 year olds are the last focus group for such a thing so it doesn't matter if you've never heard of it. That there are competitors shows there's something there. Thirdly, he's not trying to clone an existing service, he's trying to create a new one that makes sense to him from the ground up.

What I love most about the competitors I've found on Google, is that they are all just so very, very bad.

Definitely useful, but making money could be a problem. Google ads on the pages might be a little bit morbid. I don't think many people would pay for such a service since there are plenty of free alternatives already, so I really don't see where the money would come from. A slick, user-friendly product would get you users, but monetizing them doesn't look particularly straightforward to me.

Take a look at http://legacy.com/Obituaries.asp

hmmm - still no sign of a feature to allow collaboration between people who knew them.

The first thing that came to mind was the funerals.com story in 'The Monk and The Riddle' (http://www.businessweek.com/2000/00_25/b3686077.htm)

I'm not implying this applies to you :) It sounds like you are sincerely passionate about the idea.

I think it's a valid approach to realize there are companies out there doing this, they aren't popular, and it's probably because they aren't 'doing it right'. So if you think you know how to do it better, by all means do it! Good luck.

Heh. Good link. I am not married to this idea but for whatever reason, I seem to come back to something along this vein. I'm not sure if the timing is right yet, but someday it will be.

Thanks for the link and the "good luck". Same to you.

I disagree with the rest. Not to rain on your parade, but I honestly dont know if I would want a website as a memorial. Grief is personal. People I grieve for, I dont want to cheapen by putting them online. I simply remember or talk about them.

You're not raining on my parade juwo. I asked for feedback and got it. I can see why you might think having an online memorial would cheapen the memory. If you look at the memorial sites out there, they do cheapen it because they don't do a very good job.

The concept really isn't about the creation of an online memorial. It's really about providing a way for the LIVING people to come together, remember and talk. What's important here is the process of remembering and sharing with the intention of creating a memorial. My idea is simply a way to foster that connection.

I hope this frames it in a different light for you.

Suggestion: focus on Grief Recovery.

I think this would work so much better in Second Life or other "universes" like it. If you haven't tried SL, do, and go to a concert, for example. It just feels different to be somewhere in SL, you are much more involved than on a web page. Also, is your own homepage really a place you go to to feel at home? I think we create web pages mostly to present ourselves to other people. In second life, on the other hand, people are creating homes for themselves just to hang out there and feel good. So I think a place like that would be much more suited for memorials.

Also, one question pops up: do you think people would rather create a memorial on a graveyard, or in some private place? The graveyard might be good because it makes you feel less alone, but technically it isn't really necessary.

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