How will you stay informed about digital immortality, digital legacy, digital life curation, and all things #Deathtech?
Welcome to The Art of Memorialising - an audio newsletter by Peter Billingham from Death Goes Digital and Memorable Words Eulogy Writing services.
The Art of Memorialising brings you the latest news on digital immortality, digital legacy, digital life curation and all things #Deathtech.
Thanks for being here.
Sponsoring this edition of The Art of Memorialising is 4everstory
A lifetime comprises a thousand stories. 4everstory is a secure and private digital story platform. 4everstory specialises in capturing digital memories and preserving special moments in a single and secure location. 4everstory encourages sharing and connecting family memories, strengthening family bonds, and family traditions. It is a simple way to continue telling life stories.
What Will You Find In This Issue?
Happy Birthday to The Art of Memorialising!
16 reasons #Digital Legacy Has Come of Age In Last 12 Months
How you can ask ‘Alexa’ to get grandad to sing his favourite song!
Photo by Adi Goldstein on Unsplash
Happy Birthday To Me!
Well, to the newsletter, anyway!
This edition marks one year of The Art of Memorialising. Twelve months of asking, how will we choose to live forever online?
The actor Jeremy Irons wrote in his memoirs, ‘Our afterlife is what we leave behind in other people.’
Of course, that is true.
But we can’t ignore what we leave behind online. Traces of our online lives will continue on long after we have died.
Thank you for the feedback, encouragement and comments I have received. It lets me know you find the subject of #Deathtech as fascinating as I do.
Over the last year I’ve reviewed many new ideas for how you can curate, store and tell the story of your life online.
Started as a newsletter, back in December I added the option to listen via podcast to each episode.
Here are some links to the main platforms where you can find the podcast.
What has been exciting for me to see is the creativity, innovation and breadth of ways #Deathtech is developing. Above all, seeing how AI can ‘keep alive’ those we love has been the most fascinating.
Yes, some ideas seem spooky and weird to me too!
As the mainstream catches up with the culture of change, new ideas appear and some will fall by the wayside, but one thing is for sure, in the next 12 months the pace will only speed up!
Startup Spotlights
Want to check out some Startups profiled?
February - Timecapzle and Legacy Stories
December - Vocapsule and Re-cordis
November - Mind Bank AI & Hearafter AI
September - Whiteballoon & Shared Affairs
August - After Cloud & Cake
Heard of a startup in digital life curation or #Deathtech?
Please let me know. Email info@deathgoesdigital.com
Sponsored Product or Service - 4everstory
There is nothing worse than an untold family story lost forever.
We forget valuable old photographs and family movies stored away in boxes. Memories fade. Every year, thousands of digital images and videos stored on smart phones are accidentally deleted or misplaced. Increasingly, family history is lost because family stories are no longer shared. Parents or grandparents are no longer here to tell their stories.
So what is the solution?
John Withers, the Australian founder of 4everstory, has announced that its secure and private web-based digital story platform is now available.
As life becomes increasingly complex and digital, so has the interest to create unique permanent online spaces. Now it is easy to create tribute experiences rich in mixed media content. These can be collectively shared with family and friends anywhere in the world to create a wider sense of connection.
4everstory creates lasting, meaningful, and dynamic digital narratives that connect lives today and tomorrow.
John Withers and Martin Christmas are IT technologists who work to make digital experiences more personal and emotional. John and Martin passionately believe that everyone has a story to share, and created this product to honour and cherish the lives of their loved ones.
Interested in sharing your new product or service with readers of The Art of Memorialising? (check here)
We highlight your product, service, or idea sponsoring an edition. We give you the space; you get to tell the world about what you are doing or have created.
You and your business can become part of the adventure now. Secure your month in 2022/23 now.
MM’s (Memorialisation Morsels)
5 meaty bites of news for YOU to stay ahead of the conversation on Digital Legacy, Digital Life Curation & all things #Deathtech.
1 - Will We Fear Death Less In The Future Metaverse?
How Will Death Exist in the Metaverse and Web3? (Via Psychology Today) is worth a read on the question of how digital technology could help in dealing with grief and bereavement in the future by experiencing death in the virtual worlds of the coming metaverse and video games.
2 - How Alexa Could Soon Be Impersonating The Voice of a Love One?
This month Amazon revealed it is working on an Alexa feature which mimics the voice of a dead users relative. (Via The Verge) The experimental feature could see you asking Alexa to get grandad to read a bedtime story, or even sing his favourite song using an AI voice. No date is set when this is being released. But with only 60 seconds of recorded audio needed to mimic the voice, I don’t think the idea is going away just yet. Creepy or helpful? What do you think?
3 - Living Forever Online Is Not Optional - Are You Ready?
Your digital self will outlive you! Warns Amanda Hoover in a deep read about leaving traces of our lives behind online. (via Morning Brew) Following the ten-year battle one family had to access the accounts of a deceased sibling, Hoover asks the poignant question: Do you even want your family potentially reading every DM or email you’ve sent? Well… do you? It’s not just the worry of privacy, however much a valid concern, it’s the potential of fraud and protecting identities online just as much.
4 - Want To Go And Visit Your Dead Relatives For A Chat?
Which leads nicely into a Korean startup DeepBrain AI launching a service to ‘digitally immortalise’ deceased loved ones. (Via KoreaTechDesk) Re;memory is a B2C service for people to keep the healthy memories of their elderly parents forever as AI humans. The platform allows to develop human faces, voices, and expressions by mimicking every aspect of the person. Following a ‘sitting’ with the real person, video recording movements, and voice data, the family can visit and see the AI person for 30 minutes at a time - forever.
5 - 12 Months of resources - free!
Interested in accessing past issues of the newsletter? Full of the fascinating, future world of #DigitalLegacy and #Deathtech - from the mind-blowing to the downright creepy, the last 12 months have seen it all. Please enjoy!
- At Last - Have These Ideas Come of Age?
- Who Else Wants To Be Remembered Forever?
- How To Use The Memorial Power of Music In A Story
- This Is No Time To Die - Or Is It?
- Who Else Wants To Live Forever?
- Now Hear A Loved One’s Voice Forever
- Which Is Better, New Year Resolutions or New Year Intentions?
- Now The Dead Can Talk Back - How Do We Respond When They Do?
- Have You Reserved Your Plot in Facebook's Cemetery?
- How Will They Remember You? A Plaque Under A Tree or As A Digital Clone?
- How To Keep Telling Your Life Story Even After It Ends
- Is Direct Cremation Disrupting The Legacy of Traditional Funerals in the UK Forever?
Thanks again for the support and feedback. Who do you know who would find this information interesting?
Please, can you forward the email to them? I’d be very grateful.
Let’s start a conversation - info@deathgoesdigital.com
Until next month, keep safe, and keep going.
Pete
Who Wants To Live Forever?