We made a limited-edition set of 400 posters and sold them on www.alvybrooks.com in late April. They sold out in less than 24 hours. The very last poster is being auctioned so we can raise even more money for Watsi.
Good question! We'll update the amounts when the dust settles. I'd expect our cost to be ~25% of the poster price. Everything else will go to Watsi (minus shipping and sales tax for CA residents) Final #s will be posted on Twitter @alvybrooks. We're really grateful to Stripe for lowering their transaction fee and Exec for helping with packing/shipping. Those donations will allow more money to go to Watsi.
Yeah, we debated the price for a long time and consulted PG. Keep in mind that the poster was made using high production standards. They are screen-printed by hand and embossed on really beautiful French paper. We are also just trying to maximize the amount of money we can raise for Watsi since this is a limited-edition poster.
I'm a co-founder of 1000memories. One of the motivations for starting the site was a bad personal experience on Facebook after losing a friend. My friend's page got memorialized after a week, and all of his wall content was hidden. In response, three group pages were then created, and the experience became fragmented and disjointed.
I don't think of using FB as a memorial as necessarily bad or good; the truth it's somewhere in between and varies by individual. The problem for FB stems from the fact that it was never designed for this behavior. A vast majority of deaths on FB are never reported, and those profiles stay in the viral loop. Those that are reported put FB in the awkward position of being referee of the deceased's identity.
Ultimately, I was dissatisfied with allowing FB determine how we, as friends and family, were going to remember my friend's life. I don't like that his jokey profile photo is now stuck there forever. I think we can do better. But beyond FB, the reason I'm excited about building a platform for memories is that the Internet in general does a bad job speaking in the past tense. We are focused on providing tools to help people tell and preserve the stories of their loved one's lives.
I think what your team is doing is very noble. You are absolutely correct, Facebook was not tailored to this kind of activity. We need a real platform to memorialize others and - more importantly to the average user - a place where we can memorialize OURSELVES. Mortality is a big issue and we all want to be preserved for eternity in a positive light. Facebook does not give us control over this postmortem public image.
As others have pointed out, 1000memories sits outside of mainstream networks. It asks users to go out of their way to memorialize and interact with the deceased on a platform beyond their daily traffic. Perhaps not a barrier to entry issue, my guess is that 1000memories has a retention issue. How do you keep people coming back after their first visit?
Is there a way 1000memories could better tie in social media and their networks? An obviously example would be to pull a user's Twitter feed into the mix of memories. Family and friends could rank the most memorable tweets and promote certain aspects of the deceased's published life. The same concept applies to blogs, Flickr photos, and Facebook updates.
To win social media integration, the deceased party would need to give 1000memories permission to connect with social media accounts pre-passing and regulate the content that can be shared. 1000memories could market to the living to set up an account that "gives you control of the memories you leave behind." A "will" for postmortem digital image.
I would use a service that offered me the ability to control my image postmortem.
Agreed, it gets really interesting when we bring it around to ourselves. It's difficult to import digital property without expressed permission, but I think the space will evolve a lot over the next few years and create a lot of opportunities for story-telling and narrative.
Interesting. I like your description of this. I specifically think that a problem with Facebook for this is the jokes that are still there. That is another good point. I hope the press for you guys talks about the advantages of Facebook.
maybe a little context will help. from our blog...
Late last night, we received an email from Mahmoud Hashim, an Egyptian living in Toronto. Like us, he has watched with horror as peaceful demonstrators have been killed in the violence in Egypt. He told us about the growing movement to help document the martyrs losing their lives in the streets and pointed us to a collaborative Google Doc that is being circulated around the world to aid the process. Mahmoud wrote "I realized then that the least we can do is not forget these brave young men and women, and to honor them by letting the whole nation know who they were" He then asked us for a favor: Could we take the data being collected from observers in Egypt and make a more visually compelling website. He wanted us to "create a page that will help young people honor the memory of those heroes and for the whole world to see and then dive deeper."
This email came at the very end of a long day, but we knew what we had to do. We rolled up our sleeves and stayed up late into the evening creating a special online memorial to the Egyptian martyrs. A place to remember their sacrifices and know that these are not just numbers. We hope that this can be a place that shows the world what is happening and helps a little to remember each of the lives lost that they might not be wasted and that the violence may end. You can see it at 1000Memories.com/Egypt
If you have any information about someone killed in Egypt, we have linked our site to the Google Doc that has been used to record deaths. We are totally committed to continually updating our memorial as the Google Doc is updated. We currently have 32 names, but know there are hundreds more still undocumented.
This is exactly why we started 1000Memories in the first place: to help the living pay tribute and remember the ones we admire and love. We're glad to have an opportunity to do our part.
The voice over is a former colleague. We love his voice because a) he sounds like Jeff Bridges and b) he has a slight lisp that is really endearing. We tried younger voices but they just didn't feel as right. We felt it needed an older, wiser narrator.
It's cheap and looks great around the poster.
Although for some reason Fab took the BUY link down. But they'll probably put it back up again soon.