In a sign of how far virtual world environments have come, the growth curve has shifted beyond LIVING a virtual life, to being, um, dead in one. That’s right: inspired entrepreneurs will let you maintain a presence in a virtual world beyond the pesky confines of living, breathing meat space.
A virtual cemetery.
This is perhaps the first step towards the Singularity, or Philip’s vision of uploading his brain to the Grid so he can live forever. In this case, however, the intention isn’t for you to live but rather to be peacefully but perpetually dead.
Tampa Bay Online reports that “a wave of new companies are starting to offer services such as virtual cemeteries where guests can visit and e-mail alerts set up by funeral homes to remind relatives near and wide about the anniversary of your death.”
E-mail alerts? Please, how 2001 is that? I want to be tweeting my friends from the other side thanks, sending pithy reminders to buy some virtual flowers for my virtual graveside.
“Need SEO optimization for my grave. My death’s anniversary coming. Plz retweet. TinyUrl.”
Goods are a big part of the virtual graveyard business, and perhaps a useful idea for a new section on XLStreet. At the very least, Straylight should head over….with prices for trees ranging up to $35 a pop, it’s not a bad business of which to grab a slice.
“Once there, visitors can purchase items to leave behind, such as flowers, religious icons and other trinkets symbolically important to the deceased, such as golf clubs, a horse saddle, a piano or trees that can grow over time. Prices for each range from $5 to $35 apiece.”
But what’s even better are the systems that give your dead body news of the, um, death of others:
“The Harwich, Mass.-based Web site YouveBeenLeftBehind.com promises to save your advice for relatives and friends whom you fear might not make it to Heaven should the end of the world occur.
The computer system is designed to detect the Rapture: A group of several faithful families, geographically dispersed, log into the system daily, and their failure to do so trips the switch. In that event, the system presumes those families were taken up in the Rapture, and sends out your last-chance advice to a list of 60 or more addressees.
Several hundred customers have signed up to pay $14.95 per year, since the site launched a year ago.”
Virtual graveyards are, um, fine. But having gone through an experience recently, I can tell you I’d rather pay someone to have my online identity REMOVED than to have a place where it can be visited in perpetuity.
Ever try removing the Facebook profile of someone who has passed away? Now THAT, my friends, is ghoulish.
who would have thought – there’s money even in virtual death. now all we need is the same service for atheists who want to be remembered and who want to offer their loved ones a place to go to 21st century style to mourn or just learn something about you (what they never did while you were still alive). I know I would love such a place for my late grandma. I’ve been thinking about virtual portraits in this context. maybe it’s time.
in 1996 we had set up “memorialnet.com” and even went online with 3d vrml memorial sections….. had a few “advanced” investor types looking.. but they couldnt see the generational hump….
i met a fellow last week or so at web2.0 conf..(dead as it was..lol) who today owns a website cemetery and is doing quite well…
death and taxes… and tech conferences….the eternal never ends.
There’s a hauntingly beautiful cemetery sim in the Japanese sims in SL. This isn’t so far-fetched.
Thanks for the comments – and for those of you who tweeted as well….I’ve frankly been thinking a little more about this. While I was snarky with my initial take – I mean, this seems like a lot of “upsell” by the funeral industry to me, there’s also something more profound in the idea of virtual artefacts.
I wrote a while ago about death and grieving and virtual worlds, so I’ll point in that direction if you want my less snarky take on things.
Oh – and I wonder if the Island of Lost Souls is still active?
http://secondlife.reuters.com/stories/2007/03/30/second-life-sketches-the-island-of-lost-souls/
Even in a virtual world people become attatched and need to grieve when they lose someone. Our service is totally free in Second Life Open to all residents of sl ,and now just recently added a first life section for friends or family that have passed. In world 17 months now running on donations and my pocket Stop by very tactfully done Mike Burleigh Caretaker/Founder Remembering our Friends Memorial in Sunset Arts II Sim in Second Life
I’ve visited a few virtual cemeteries in SL. Plus a number of memorials. Given the ages of many SL users, it isn’t surprising that some of us die of age-related illnesses and problems, never mind accident and misadventure.
A good friend of mine in SL has died approximately twice each year, on average. People I’d never have had the privilege to know if I’d been restricted to AFK activities.
A couple years ago, I proposed an idea to my living relatives of setting up a virtual cemetery for our deceased ancestors. I would tell by their reaction that they felt it was a completely morbid and disrespectful idea so I didn’t pursue it. But I would not be surprised if one day this becomes more acceptable.
I also am a member of the findagrave.com site, and try to participate in that as much as I can. It has been very useful.
Believe it or not, I thought about this idea three years ago. Back then, I was thinking that a virtual memorial space in Second Life would be a good place to be remembered. You can set up a room or garden to contain that which reminds your family friends of you when you were living. It could be photographs, furnitures, replica of RL belongings, video recordings of special events in someone’s life. I think it was a great idea then. I salute the ones who actually made the service available.
Somebody has to pay for such spaces, it is difficult to offer them for free. And those that have tried getting entire cemetary sims rented out can’t get them rented out. There was a beautiful project by Metabirds, a Japanese cemetary called Memoris that had headstones and mourning suits and such for sale and low-cost plots to rent. I hardly found anyone using it.
And I don’t know why. I guess because it doesn’t feel real, and because if you are going to have a place to memorialize someone, you may want it to be different than just a replica of a RL cemetary with just a headstone. You might want it to have more capacity like a webpage with pictures etc.