Footnote made a lot of noise over their new Footnote Pages features. Footnote created a tribute site and kick-started it by creating pages based on the Social Security Death Index (SSDI).
To hear footnote tell it, it is an entirely new and original idea. I thought it would be a good idea to do a quick review, and start by mentioning some of the companies it is competing with.
The first thing worth mentioning is that you can already search the entire SSDI for free on sites like FamilySearch, FamilyTreeLegends, New England Ancestors American Ancestors, RootsWeb and WorldVitalRecords.
The different sites do not update their databases at the same time, so you may want to take advantage of Stephen Morse’s One Step page that searches all of them at once.
Footnote is not the first to create an SSDI-based obituary site. For example, Tributes.com was introduced on 2008 Feb 13 and will be open from Sep 23 onward. Simple short obituaries are free, larger ones must be paid for.
The oldest site in this category is probably Legacy.com, started in 1998 (not related to the Legacy Family Tree program). It has obituary feeds from hundreds of newspapers, and links to those newspaper for placing an obituary. It recently (2008 Jun 17) added social network features, including Legacy Memorial Websites, which allows users to combine biography, photos, video and audio in memory of a deceased.
I particularly like Legacy.com’s ObitMessenger notification service. This
feature will notify you of obituaries matching last names of your choice.
The ObitMessenger service is not free. A yearly subscription may make sense to all-American families,
but makes little sense to someone like me with just a few dozen distant
relatives on the American continent.
I believe asking a fee for this service to be a serious marketing blunder. Offering something like this for free puts a social face on the business, will make the company a popular name among genealogist, and drive a lot of traffic to the rest of their website and services.
Otrib.com started in 2007 Jun and opened to all on 2007 Nov 28. Everything on this site is free, and that includes its notification service. Otrib makes enough money from adds and the stuff you buy through the site, such as flowers and cards, to keep the site free. That sounds wonderful, but the site did not make a good first impression. The home page has text running over photos and through other text. It looks horrible. Only when you enable JavaScript does it look right. You can place obituaries, create tribute pages and chat with other members. There is a directory of funeral homes, cemeteries etcetera, and some already have user reviews.
The new Footnote Pages feature a photo gallery, an interactive timeline and map and more. That sure sounds a lot like Legacy Memorial Websites. It was introduced on 2008 Sep 10 with empty profiles based on the SSDI.
All three sites offer search right on their home page, without requiring signup. I searched all three for someone who died a few month ago. I learned about his death through the SSDI. Tributes.com had no one with that last name, Legacy.com did not have his SSDI record yet, but did find several obit records for the last name, including his obituary.
Footnote Pages did not have his SSDI record when I first visited, but did have it a few days later, and they created an page for him for people to add information to. You do not need wait for Footnote to create a page based on the SSDI, you can create pages yourself. I wonder what would have happened if I had created a page for the deceased before Footnote updated their SSDI database again. I am guessing there would be two pages for the same person.
Of these three sites, Tributes.com is the most traditional ones, a fairly sober site for obituaries. Legacy features LegacyConnect to help members deal with their loss. Legacy Memorial Websites looks more mature than Footnote Pages. The layout is fixed, but there are multiple themes to choose from. Legacy.com’s focus is on the recently deceased and you will have to keep paying to keep a site up. Footnote Pages all share the same boring layout with no theme to speak of, but it is an entirely free service. Footnote is doing to this to drive traffic to their subscription website. The big problem with Footnote Pages is that you do not own the page.
Footnote introduced Footnote pages at TechCrunch50, as "Facebook for the Deceased". I have a niggling suspicion that it is that tagline that earned them TechChrunc50 finalist status. It is a great sound bite, a perfect elevator pitch, but it is not true.
Facebook is a social network, Footnote Pages is not.
On Facebook, you control
your own page, on Footnote Pages, each page is accessible to everyone. Footnote
Pages is not Facebook for the Deceased, it is closer to Wikipedia for the
deceased. Of course, the big problem with the Wikipedia model is battles over
page content, and that would be rather distasteful. The Footnote Pages do not
really allow anyone to edit, they allow members to add. Visitors cannot do
anything, members can add conflicting information, but cannot remove stuff added
by another member.
The name is a bit of problem. Footnote Pages is not as long as Legacy Memorial Pages, but it begs to be abbreviated, and FootPages just does not sound very respectful. In fact, Person Pages would be a much better name, not just because it is more descriptive, but also because people may not like to be a footnote.
Genealogist will be a bit frustrated that it is all very person-centric, when your interest in any page is because you are related to the person. Setting up links between pages to highlight relations between the people is cumbersome, and you cannot upload a GEDCOM to have a bunch of interconnected pages created. It does not show the pages you have contributed to on your account and you cannot add them yourself either. Footnote Pages also suffers from the issue most Flash sites share: it is remarkably slow.
One thing is true for all these tribute sites: you should check them out, if only to see what someone else contributed about your ancestor.
FootNote has introduced the I Remember FaceBook application, which is FootNote Pages on FaceBook.
Footnote was wrong to introduce their Footnote Pages as Facebook for the
Dead
, I was wrong to compare it with SSDI or tribute sites.
The focus on genealogy makes it different.
Comparison with WikiTree, which also uses one page person, would have been better.
Today, both sites offer a lot of information that may help you in your own research.
Ancestry has acquired Footnote, see Ancestry.com Buying Spree.
Ancestry has renamed Footnote to Fold3, see Ancestry renames Footnote to Fold3. All Footnote links have been updated.
Copyright © Tamura Jones. All Rights reserved.