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NYTimes on Facebook death, and why we created 1000Memories (YC S10)

1000memories.com

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Re: NYTimes on Facebook death, and why we created 1000Memories (YC S10)

#21

Post by 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.

Re: NYTimes on Facebook death, and why we created 1000Memories (YC S10)

#22

Post by tptacek »

amichail wrote: post #12

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?

You're only saying this because it was a Max Headroom episode.

Re: NYTimes on Facebook death, and why we created 1000Memories (YC S10)

#23

Post by nostrademons »

sliverstorm wrote: post #15
amichail wrote: post #12

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?

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

There's a TV series (Caprica) based around that...

Re: NYTimes on Facebook death, and why we created 1000Memories (YC S10)

#24

Post by tptacek »

jacksoncarter wrote: post #21

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 ab…

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.

Re: NYTimes on Facebook death, and why we created 1000Memories (YC S10)

#25

Post by Charuru »

naz wrote: post #20
Charuru wrote: post #2

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.

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

Twitter has network effect.

Re: NYTimes on Facebook death, and why we created 1000Memories (YC S10)

#26

Post by [deleted] »

tptacek wrote: post #24
jacksoncarter wrote: post #21

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 ab…

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 J…

[deleted]

Re: NYTimes on Facebook death, and why we created 1000Memories (YC S10)

#28

Post by Bretthuneycutt »

quickpost wrote: post #6

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…

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

Re: NYTimes on Facebook death, and why we created 1000Memories (YC S10)

#29

Post by 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 :-)

Re: NYTimes on Facebook death, and why we created 1000Memories (YC S10)

#30

Post by snitko »

sliverstorm wrote: post #8

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.

Exactly. Almost a year ago I was considering the same idea. I talked to many people, some of them thought the idea was good. But then I talked to a friend of mine (she was all supportive, btw) and mentioned that I didn't feel right about the project. I said I felt like maybe we should do something for life, not death. She agreed and said she's glad I said this. So from this moment on I decided I'm not using this idea, knowing, of course, someone else would do it for me.
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