I was thinking about where do digital assets go when we die? Inspired by the corona virus outbreak which took millions of people's lives away, and soon i could be next for any reason. Thus leaving thousands of online accounts into a death-like corpse, which people had put so much time and energy into it, and i believe there might have a story to tell towards remaining beloved family and friends. Let me know if u interested to listen more about my idea~
I did something similar some years ago.
Phoenix, it was a web app to send a message to the people you love when you die.
It's an interesting topic, I got some press attention for a while, but it was my first ever side-project, I had no idea of validation, marketing or even mvps. Learned a lot though.
Here are some stories about it, hope you find them useful!
Omg!! I'm so glad to meet you here Enrique and thank you for sharing Phoenix story, never thought like that before. And have read through all the links and did really learn A LOT! Thank you sincerely. Now what I have in mind is kind of serving as an author for biography, based on the social posts people are willing to share, but the goal is to prevent people from suicide. I want to create a space where people can express their inner self truly and freely, like in therapy. I would be very greatful if you interested to help or guide in some way bec I had no knowledge aobut coding, web dev, IoT, and zero experience building stuff...lol
I've had this idea myself. The problem is that it's kind of an insurance proposition, hopefully not to be needed for decades. So people have to trust that you'll be around for a long long time or else they've wasted their time and/or money. or worse, if you sell out to some BigCorp.
The only way I think this would work, is if you partnered with an long-existing institution like a major library or university, who would lend their credibility and longevity to the project. But they're not likely to pay attention if you don't have a lot of money, data, and/or users, so it becomes a chicken-and-egg problem.
I think there's a lot of societal value to offering a solution to this problem, but probably not a big market for simply archiving digital assets. You may be interested in looking for other companies in this general space though, like https://storiespreserved.com/ which goes beyond the bits.
Yesss, "stories preserved" is the closest one to the idea! Really appreciate your comment bec this is the first time to know it until now. And what very interesting is you said "it's kind of an insurance proposition" sounds like a memory bank or something. So what had in mind is personal historian plus psychotherapy, the goal essentially is to prevent people from suicide. I want to create an anti-social social space (lol) where people can express their inner selves truly and freely, as in therapy sessions. Yet the credibility and longevity of the project is indeed much depending on the data and its social value - I think link with some social media posts will help?? Pls shoot me on that as i got zero knowledge about coding and web dev stuff. Totally agree with you - love to hear more from you :)
If you can build a service that can at least extract my data from FB, Google (via Google Takeout), instagram, tiktok, twitter, etc, etc so I could save it locally, and do this monthly, that would be great. If it created a dead-man's switch to email out to my family, that's fine too.
This is a space that I'm super interested in personally, and have thought about in terms of building.
If you expanded to ownership transfer as well that's a neat idea too, but I can see some immediate utility while alive.
Hihii Dave, SoulOfTheGods! Thanks so much for your comment and I might need your help in building into real, already we share most ideas even just by your name' What I have in mind is a kind of personal historian plus therapy sessions, and the goal essentially is to prevent people from suicide. But I don't know if it was feasible in terms of user attractiveness or friendly apps dev?
google lets you set something up for that (did fb as well?...), but most companies don't deal with it, cause it's super niche, one use and not even benefited by the original user in a way ^^, sorry if words are problematic, hard topic
Happy with your comment :) I think FB & Instagram have option to turn the account into memorialized or closed when the user is reported dead. I don't want mine to just close and treated my memory purely as data to be deleted forever, the end should at least be recognized as a biography - a gift - precious to remaining family, friends, especially next-generation kids. And totally agree it's super niche, but could be strong like sports streaming in my opinion lol What I have in mind is a kind of biography author who offer therapy, and the goal essentially is to prevent people from suicide. Pls shoot me more words on that as well !!
You might be threading a fine line of social norms and might be conceived as ironically profiting from someone's death...
That's some hardcore stuff... commonly talking about suicide is known to trigger more, IDK if just death in general is the same, I'm guessing framing it has some affect... I hope you have or will seek some expert knowledge on these matters. This shouldn't be taken lightly.
Absolutely will need professional experts for the subject matters bec this is where I see the probable income to support the biography writing, and ironically not the death part u formulated profiting. And wish to know how as I see nothing wrong with the cost of funeral services. But personally, I even thought of turning this into a philanthropy project if nothing works out in the end. There's still a long way to go, and I do appreciate your interest.