Digital estate memorial

A digital estate memorial is a digital, or electronic, representation of a living or dead persons' life. It commonly takes place in the format of photographic slideshows; online memorials; QR code products; NFC tags; gift boxes featuring tablets or smartphones with pre-installed estate instructions, messages or guides; displays, and other electronic media-based representations. It can be created in life or death. Contributors are part of a 'permanent remembrance community' that captures and creates a memorial based on the use of digital media and a persons' digital assets to form a virtual scrapbook in homage to a lived life.
The creation of a digital estate memorial helps secure the current and future 'personal branding' of a person's life not only in tribute, but to establish the long term stability of their estate for (human) beneficiaries.
As experiential media (i.e. in the forms of social media, livestreaming, social photography, etc) plays a bigger part in the creation of a persons' digital image, and with the increasing importance of digital assets with respect to estate planning, intellectual property and digital inheritance in everyday lives and in death, creating a digital estate memorial is similar to creating a digital scrapbook as a celebration of life.
Digital bereavement
The application of digital estate memorials are posthumously and partially informed by the concept of digital bereavement, a term used extensively by websites such as SocialEmbers.com - (a finalist in the 2015 Good Funeral Awards) - and others to describe various concerns and methods to do with the management of one's digital estate upon passing. As accounts and data accrue - email, social media, billing records, lifestreams, etc - the methods used to protect descendants have evolved over the years of the digital and multimedia era.
Future claims
While not only do records of social media timelines and other similar accounts need to be considered in estate planning, so too does the use of digital assets by the descendants of an estate for future use with respect to potential benefits and claims. Further consideration must be made if said claims are the result of the application of new technology not previously considered by an estate manager. With respect to a digital estate memorial, future applications of accrued data and information may provide opportunities for the memorial to benefit the estate. One such current example of this is the use of historical photography in current applications to create new or hybrid representations of ascendants.
Tools
Basic tools used to create digital estate memorials include LED displays; web site creation software; digital signage suites and displays; slideshow apps such as Flickr and FlickrFolio; content management systems (CMS); networking equipment and accessories; hardware (including but not limited to Smart TVs and set-top boxes). This is a partial list of some of the necessary associated equipment needed to create a virtual tribute atmosphere.
Most funeral homes offer services for basic personal tributes such as a TV or DVD player, yet as the demand for digital estate memorializing increases, tools such as Facebook's account Memorialization service, along with other digital memorials, if they are to be used in conjunction with a viewing or wake, require further integration with Wi-Fi (or wired) Internet access, mobile data use, apps and large-screen displays. Although there is an inherent stigma about accessing technology at a funeral service, the sheer volume of cloud-based services catering to those living and deceased who wish to construct a digital afterlife indicates otherwise.
Digital funeral signage
While there is no equivalent term to describe the use of interactive digital advertising displays at funeral services, the industry has yet to adopt standards with respect to the implementation of digital estate memorials and tributes from friends and loved ones. Many of the commercial services geared toward this part of death care business use digital display screens for promotional or marketing purposes, not solely for the use of tributes.
FrontRunnerPro offers the white-label FuneralScreen.com sign and kiosk solution for funeral homes. Included in the technical description of services offered include cloud based storage; wall-mounted, free-standing and outdoor digital signs; and a themed 'Book of Memories' provided by the sign manufacturer. This is a proprietary one-way system and is not interactive with existing online memorials. It is unknown whether future updates to the technology will include provisions for integration of social media and other permanent forms of tributes made to the deceased. This system is chiefly marketed for use temporarily as part of a rotating schedule of funeral home services. In other words, loved ones are not able to 'take away' any portion of the presentation. The software applications used to create the presentation this company markets are from DigitalSignage.com, a provider of standard display advertising production suite applications. The company offers a free feature-reduced solution with free cloud storage at its website. Funeral directors seeking this solution would need an estate manager to engage a producer for this Adobe Air based app.
Funeral livestreaming
A Google search for the terms 'WiFi' and 'Funeral home', turns up [https://www.google.ca/webhp?hl=en#q=WiFi,+Funeral+home results] that indicate that the death care industry is willing to advertise and promote technological innovation through their public web channels. One such company offering livestreaming of funerals is New Zealand-based One Room, powered by Amazon Web Services and enabled by a Google Play and Apple Store downloadable app. The application requires 'strong mobile signal (preferably 4G) or wifi internet connection', potentially not available in all business locations.
In January 2016, entertainment website TMZ reported that Motorhead lead singer Ian 'Lemmy' Kilmister's funeral was livestreamed to the world via a broadcast on YouTube. It was viewed by an estimated 250,000 people. Future use and re-use of this filmed material in productions that benefit descendants could be considered part of a digital estate memorial.
Living headstones
Monuments.com offers 'Living headstones', a QR code enabled memorial gravestone. According to marketing materials, a QR code enabled headstone "contains information you and friends add about your loved one, such as: an obituary, family heritage and history, photos, comments by friends and relatives and even links to share content on popular social sites such as Facebook or Twitter". Such markers can provide GPS co-ordinates in addition to social-media applications.
Content management
WordPress is a content management system that is highly customizable. One plug-in available for the CMS is WP FuneralPress which makes available a suite of tools for both agencies and individual funeral homes to offer Internet-based control over obituaries. The long term retention of data associated with this system may not make it ideal for estate use given the unpredictability of free apps. The software offers no reasonable method of guaranteeing the safe transfer of digital assets over generational succession.

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