Making preparations for funeral services, burial preferences, and other memorial issues is a natural part of New York estate plans. These details have been a staple of the mourning and remembrance process for centuries. However, if trends continue, a new form of memory may be added to many plans: professional, digital tributes.
Online Memorial Websites
The stratospheric rise in popularity of online social networks and blogs should make it no surprise that remembrances for lost loved ones are moving online. Placing an obituary in the local paper or buying a memorial ad on the yearly anniversary is no longer the only way to share information about a passing and gracefully remember those who are gone. The process has moved online.
The Wall Street Journal published a story this week that discusses many of the most common options local families are turning to when trying to craft an online memorial for their loved ones. These sites are often referred to as “virtual gravestones” that allow friends and family a shared place to mourn across the web. A few of the most common vendors:
Legacy.com
ForeverMissed.com
LifeStory.com
Facebook
Of the above list, Facebook and LifeStory are free. The Facebook option is simply conversion of an old account into a “Memorialized Account.” This preserves many of the memories and message on the page for friends and family. Similarly, using a Facebook account, LifeStory.com provides a more formal online memorial with specific pictures, messages, and memories added.
Alternatively, Legacy.com and ForeverMissed.com are stand-alone memorial companies that offer various degrees of customization. These sites range from a $35 to $100 and vary as to whether there is an annual subscription renewal charge or if the site will remain up indefinitely.
All told, one reviewer who searched various sites in an effort to compare features and functionality argued that all of these formal online memorial sites have much room to grow. Many of the sites seem outdated and have not fully embraced the social connectivity that undergird so much online browsing today. For example, critiquing Legacy.com (currently the largest provider online memorials), the reviewer noted that the site “pages are limited to a collection of preset boxes and small photos that might have been cutting edge in 2002.”
The safe bet is that more and more options will pop up in the coming years for New York residents to craft official online memorial spaces. These tools may eventually make their way into formal estate plans so that residents are able to specifically explain how they would like their online remembrance to look and feel.