That was the subject of a recent story in The New York Times Magazine, "Cyberspace When You're Dead," that examined digital estate planning, if you will - the steps that people are starting to take in order to secure their online assets. There are books and websites and a whole range of new services and companies popping up that aim to help with the planning.

A Permanent Space to Remember Loved Ones: 1000Memories

It's estimated that between 1.78 million and 3 million Facebook users will pass away this year, and while the company has begun to establish policies around what to do when a user dies, neither of these platforms feel like really the right place to preserve and honor the memory of a loved one.

And that was part of the impetus for the formation of 1000Memories, a website where friends and family can come together to remember someone who has passed. 1000Memories aims "to create a place that visitors can gather and remember the lives of the people they love most; a place where visitors know that their loved ones will be treated with respect and where their memory will be maintained forever."

1000Memories allows users to create a customizable homepage and invite friends and family to share stories, upload photos, and sign a guestbook. The site is free (unlike the exorbitant fees some newspapers charge to print an obituary). You can also start a project in someone's honor via the site and gather donations to a charitable cause to be made in their name.

The three founders of 1000Memories all lost loved ones themselves. And while this might have helped them identify the need for a service like this, arguably it also gave them keen insight on how to create an experience for users that is deeply respectful.

As there are so many horrific processes one has to go through under these circumstances, it is crucial that setting up a memorial site not be one of them. 1000Memories has created a site that makes it easy - during one of the most difficult times - to remember our departed loved ones.

More Noise to Signal.

Movie reviewer Ben Brown founded Consumating some time between 2003 and 2005, as a joke, unless he's joking about it being a joke. This is the Bay Area we're talking about, so from an outside and sane perspective it's hard to know what's real.

Has the Consumating Community Been Wronged?

Andy Baio asks the following:

Even though Consumating never found a huge audience or revenue, it's worth noting that it still has a dedicated following that loves the site, uses it every day, and formed offline relationships because of it. It's unfortunate that CNET couldn't find a way to keep the site online, even if that meant handing it back to the users that made it special. Since online communities are built on top of user's contributions and social interactions, it raises the question: are companies responsible for keeping community website alive, even after they cease to be strategically desirable?

Answer: No. No more than they are responsible to share the ad revenue on user generated content sites in the event that any money is made. Despite the principled demands by some power users, I think that revenue sharing either is or isn't part of the contract with users when they sign up. They know that. On YouTube no one expects a cut of the money. On Rever...well, never mind.

Likewise, CNet/Consumating's allowing easy export of user data is good form but surely no one would argue that they are under any obligation to keep an underperforming property alive. The internet may be about democratization of communication and community but in reality things are more complicated than that. The unspoken but widely understood assumption of every user who uses and contributes to a service hosted on someone else's servers is that it all might go away some day. We just want to be able to take our data with us when we hear the words "you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here."

Does this suck, anyway?

I'm sure it does for many of the people who enjoyed the site, though reactions in comments on the announcement were very kind. Perhaps those users can take their socializing over to Twitter, where the quality of service will often make them wish it would die.

Consumating was cool. It did things with tagging and questions that don't seem so unusual today but were less common when the site launched. There's a Consumating feel over at GetSatisfaction, I feel like, and probably elsewhere around the web, too. Maybe I just don't know how to take a joke, though. [continued after clichéd profile image below]

Is there a message here for entrepreneurs?

Yes. Add this to the list of reasons that getting involved with bigger companies is not pure fun. Presumably no one central to Consumating, or other startups acquired then shut-down, is too heart broken since this risk is part of the deal. If you sold the company then the money was more important to you than the future of the company and that's ok.

I want to see a user-centric model emerge with strength on the web but it's going to have to be either economically viable or go on in a nonprofit environment - and nonprofits tend not to be much fun. Such is life, whatever happened to Tribe (?) and thanks for reading.

It sure is interesting, though, that almost no one noticed. One minute you're getting acquired by the News.com people and the next...