Facebook is Great for Dead People | Hacker News Reader

Facebook is Great for Dead People

craigormiston.com

63 pointscormiston34 comments

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...

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.

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.

Agreed.

Having seen some of my friends successfully and easily set up memory pages on Facebook, makes me more inclined to choose Facebook (which I know and (somewhat) trust) over 1000memories. In other words, the exposure that Facebook has (or will have when memory pages become more widespread) is far greater than 1000memories due to their pre-existing social network.

I had never heard of 1000memories until now, but I think you make a good point about their strategy. Their service requires you to physically create a memorial where as Facebook inadvertently just gives it to you. Not to mention it's already tied into your (seemingly) primary social network.

Automation in a service like this is key because, well, you're dead and you can't do anything about it.

Facebook should consider features the user can control that take effect upon death. A user would have to have a certain level of foresight about their mortality, but i think that could have a very positive effect.

Could it be as simple as denoting a Facebook next-of-kin?

Sounds like a plan to me!

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.

Interesting. I like your description of this. I specifically think that a problem with Facebook for this is the jokes that are still there. That is another good point. I hope the press for you guys talks about the advantages of Facebook.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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...

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

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

That's a scary thought.

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?

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

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...

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

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.

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

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

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

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).

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

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

my point exactly!

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?

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.

Mike - great work! I looking forward to taking more time with your service and exploring it further.

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

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...

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