By M. Kotch

Source: Flickr.com

In the era of constant Internet access through our laptop, Blackberry, iPad or Twitter, we’ve all noticed huge changes in the ways we manage and conduct our day-to-day lives, like booking a vacation, making a doctor’s appointment or arranging services. The funeral industry is not immune to these changes; from online obituaries to funeral Webcasts to permanent pages—it all seems light years away from the funeral parlor-style practices of yester year.

But what do the big changes look like? Below are the top five ways the Internet is changing the funeral industry.

1.    The Nature of Grieving: more and more family members and friends are taking their grief to the forums. By posting comments (such as on the Otrib.com discussion forums), mourners can find a place to share their feelings, ask questions and maintain privacy while opening up. Forums and condolence pages also create a place for mourners to post sympathy notes about the deceased.

2.    Instant and Accessible Obituaries: once upon a time, mourners had to pay for an obituary to be posted in the local paper and could only hope that a paragraph— sans picture—might fully capture a loved one’s life. Online notices, however, have changed the nature of the game by allowing people to create their own obituaries, have family or friends write it, and even post a picture or video to accompany the traditional format.

3.    Permanent Memorials: from Facebook memorial pages to RosettaStone to various Web sites, it’s clear that in the information age, mourners preserve the memory of loved ones by keeping their online profiles active and alive in the hearts of family and friends. The Internet, and its nature of 24-hour public access, has become the new, and in some cases definitive, public record.

4.    Webcasting the Funeral: We seldom live near all the people we love and hold dear; Webcasting is a growing trend in the funeral industry because it gives mourners from all over the world the chance to experience the celebration of a loved one’s life. The process works by streaming media feed from a single source over the Internet to different users.

5.    Social Networking: whether it’s a Twitter update from the funeral home or a Facebook status notice by a relative, social networks help family and friends exchange important information regarding funeral or service details in real time and in a concise fashion. This can be especially helpful in the instance of any last minute changes because the information can be instantly available on the Web or sent to cell phones.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 9th, 2010 at 5:03 am and is filed under Family & Friends. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.