Why, yes, there is, in fact, an app for that. No, it doesn’t come on your iPhone or Android smartphone. It’s actually an application manufactured by a company in Israel called “Wilook” for use with your Facebook account. The app is fairly simple in its design and execution, but most innovative ideas are.
The first step is to install the “If I Die” app through your Facebook account. You’ll choose three “trustees” who are your close friends in real life as well as Facebook. Upon your death, they’ll be responsible for confirming that you are no longer alive. After they have confirmed your passing, a video or text post is posted to your Facebook account with your final messages to friends and family who may not know of your death, or are unable to make it to your city for the funeral or memorial service.
The application is fairly flexible and allows users to schedule posts over the course of a year, or even years. One example given by the designers is that of a woman who discovered she had terminal cancer and recorded videos for her daughter to be posted on her wall each year on her daughter’s birthday until she turns 18.
The idea for the app came after some of the creator’s friends narrowly avoided death themselves and realized they would have nothing to leave behind if they passed away suddenly. They asked their friend to create the site and Eran Alfonta, the CEO of Wilook, obliged saying “Actually we all want to leave something behind, we all want to leave a stamp behind us.”
Social media is still a relatively new phenomenon, so we are all still testing the boundaries of what’s considered appropriate and developing new Facebook etiquette for when a loved one dies, but this seems like an elegantly simple solution to a problem of connecting with all of the people we love in an increasingly e-connected society.
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Great to see this, was thinking of how to do this myself, but the flaw here is requiring not just one person offline, but three? Some of us are entirely 100% alone, w/no friends or acquaintances (or family) to do such a thing.
There needs to be a way for someone entirely on their own to be in such a system.