Is there any mileage in a site for memories?

[edo]

I posted a question on Fbook this afternoon which a few people replied to. The question was:

Q. Would you be prepared to pay £2.95 a month to store memories (photos, journals, stories etc) of your life - in your words - on a secure website where you control the privacy settings?

The response so far has been resoundingly no.

I understand why as you'll be effectively be able to store memories for free on Fbook with their upcoming Timeline feature.

Someone on Fbook made a very good point that most people don't really think about what they'll leave behind as they're too busy living.

Which, I guess, makes a website for storing your memories on defunct.

Or does it?

Twitter is the absolute here and now - people's instant thoughts. Fbook is the present and increasingly the near past. But for me it is quite superficial in its content - status updates, likes, comments etc.

Surely there is room at the other end of the spectrum - a place where people can strore only those thoughts or things that are dear to them.

Or is that way of thinking on the way out? Is it all just the here and now for future generations?

All thoughts on this topic hugely appreciated. I just can't decide if there's a good idea amongst all my muddled thinking on this or not.

Cheers,

Ed

 

[boxerdog]

I think its a great idea and I had the same thought for my name Cherished/org/uk but Im not sure peopole would want to pay for such a thing?

 

[cc976a]

This is where your marketing strategy and branding come in to play. In fairness I wouldn't pay a fee because I can set this up myself for much cheaper - but I wouldn't be your target audience.

That being said not being much of a social hound and not really having a social media account I wouldn't know how was it would be to set this up with the myriad of YouTube / Facebook / Google+ options there are out there. If it is not easy or cheap then this could be a goer - but if you can do all this for free anyway what be the point of the fee?

So yes there could be a market but I really think you'll need a solid website with an exceptional marketing strategy and the ability to reach an audience that is not savvy enough to be able to do this for free, but feel comfortable and confident storing their precious memories on the big scary world wide web

 

[Ashton]

Here's a site where people are storing local memories: http://www.mychichesterharbour.co.uk/

I think it's a good idea to have something to record significant event's. If I had a kid today I would create a site for them and log important bits of there life so they can refer back to it when they are older.

The other day I found a little booklet of when I was at nursery - They took pictures, logged my progress, it had paintings I had drawn (A t-rex just looked like a mess of crayon for example!) and to me thats priceless and such a good thing for a nursery to do.

Following on from that, I think that you have 2 ideal markets to target with something like this:

1. Parents who want to create a timeline of their child, the story of the start of their life.
Photo's of birthdays, uploads of scanned work, writing about what they did, what they achieved, etc.

2. The opposite end of the spectrum, obituaries. Whilst this is a bit more morbid, it doesn't have to be. Celebrating the life of a dead person would be the best angle for it. Could be well integrated with facebook, people could share their memories and share the burden of their loss.

 

[Edwin]

Makes no sense at all having a site with a monthly fee if you're talking about what people "leave behind"! It's a business model that's utterly broken.

With very few exceptions (terminal illness, for example) people have little or no idea when they're going to die - and without exception they're unable to pay for things after they do! So what happens to all those precious memories once the £2.95/month stops flowing in? I'm guessing that's one of the reasons you've been getting such consistent negative feedback. And imagine the negative publicity that would come from "forcing" the next-of-kin to pay up or lose access to those memories - very, very bad...

Oh, and if you switch to "one time" pricing so that the "legacy" aspect is protected, people probably won't believe you either - without an ongoing source of revenue how is such a company supposed to keep operating, after all?

 

[cc976a]

Makes no sense at all having a site with a monthly fee if you're talking about what people "leave behind"! It's a business model that's utterly broken.

With very few exceptions (terminal illness, for example) people have little or no idea when they're going to die - and without exception they're unable to pay for things after they do! So what happens to all those precious memories once the £2.95/month stops flowing in? I'm guessing that's one of the reasons you've been getting such consistent negative feedback. And imagine the negative publicity that would come from "forcing" the next-of-kin to pay up or lose access to those memories - very, very bad...

Oh, and if you switch to "one time" pricing so that the "legacy" aspect is protected, people probably won't believe you either - without an ongoing source of revenue how is such a company supposed to keep operating, after all?

I don't think that was the suggestion for the business model, this seemed to be a reply from someone on Fb - because as you say it's flawed from the site with too much negativity on trying to obtain long term funding or payment from relatives

This model works better from a memory point of view for an individual. Reminiscing etc.... I think for this business model to work you need a free and paid option. Now 90% of your customers may not pay but would be funded by the extra 10% who would pay for better features, advanced options etc.... Many businesses operate a free and paid model such as this. - but you can then Market add-ons to upsell to the free members.

You'd have to get funding behind you and a good marketing plan to reach masses to bring in earnings

It would be a good way to look back at events, journals, family memories - but you've got to create something special and something not on offer in the vast array of social sites to create a solid USP

Right now the Internet is ripe for this type of service but it will have to be special

 

[edo]

Cheers for the feedback guys. Much appreciated. Keep it coming!

 

[Rich]

1. Parents who want to create a timeline of their child, the story of the start of their life.
Photo's of birthdays, uploads of scanned work, writing about what they did, what they achieved, etc.

My thoughts on it are to just target this niche area so your creating an online memory box.

Make if free for xGB of storage then small fee once they exceed it.

By the time they have exceeded their free storage they will be quite happy to start paying

 

[Blossom]

My thoughts on it are to just target this niche area so your creating an online memory box.

Make if free for xGB of storage then small fee once they exceed it.

By the time they have exceeded their free storage they will be quite happy to start paying

If it's a customisable album type thing rather than a box it can be integrated with print options which you could charge for, e.g. printing out scrapbook-style pictures or ordering Christmas cards with pictures of their kids on (or bags, mugs, etc. etc.). Could have a simple drag and drop guided option - first day at school, video of first steps etc. - or just have blank pages with various backgrounds and titles.

I really like the memory idea, but I agree that people won't want to pay outright for it. Premium accounts & cost for additional storage could work, as suggested. Ads would also help.

 

[edo]

Rich - sounds a bit like Dropbox.

Blossom - sounds a bit like SnapFish.

Both good ideas but I guess why a fair few people are saying a memories site won't work is those two areas have already been covered and covered well.

I still think there's mileage in an original memories site somewhere. Just don't know where yet!

As an example of a cool, never-been-done-before memories site check out HistoryPin.com which is now starting to take off. God, I wish I'd come up with that idea. Kind of genius really.

 

[edo]

From the feedback I've got so far it seems:

- people don't want to pay to store their personal memories
- what I outlined sounds too similar to the many cloud storage services out there

I'd now agree with both points.

Perhaps I should go back to the core idea I had about a memorial site. What I'm trying to do is nail down a customer pain and provide them with a solution.

My guess is that it's a pain in the bum for some people to have to traipse along to the graveyard every week/month/year to lay down flowers for a relative or close friend. Why not give them that capability online (eg virtual flowers, gifts)? Or do people enjoy going to the graveyard and that physical act is part of paying respect? I have no idea to be honest.

Also a fair percentage of people are cremated these days, so where do they pay their respects?

Plenty of memorial sites out there but 99% are rubbish, with the exception of Legacy.com, which just feels a bit dry to me.

All input appreciated

 

[boxerdog]

What about a site where people can leave a video message to their loved ones to look back on when they have passed away, I would love to watch a video of my nans & grandad just having a chat to me and my family.

 

[steww]

Not sure how long this timeline url has been live - mentioned in 1st post - but as on topic:

https://www.facebook.com/about/timeline

 

[edo]

The timeline will go live on Oct 18 apparently. But then the date has been put back several times already.

You can get it early here by following the instructions here. Very easy to set up. Really is very cool.

http://mashable.com/2011/09/22/how-to-facebook-timeline/#27135Step-7

Ed

 

[daleduan]

If you are willing to spend £2.95 a month just to store your memorabilias then better get a hosting. I believe you can find a good webhosting for this price.

 

[Deltrus]

In the future maybe. When we can upload and share our actual memories.