Tales From the Crypt: Storing E-Mail to Be Sent After Your Death

• Published in: The New York times
• Main Author: Koeppel, David S
• Format: Newspaper Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, N.Y New York Times Company 13.04.2000
• Edition: Late Edition (East Coast)
• Subjects: Death & dying; Electronic mail systems; Entrepreneurs; Krim, Todd Michael; Web sites
• ISSN: 0362-4331

THOSE who consider the Internet an indispensable part of their lives may be pleased to learn that it can also play a role after their deaths. A Web site called FinalThoughts.com offers its users a place to store e-mail messages online so they can be sent to family members and friends after each writer has died. Think of it as e-mail from beyond the grave. While the ''afterlife e-mails,'' as they're called, became the basis for creating the site, Mr. [Todd Michael] Krim envisioned FinalThoughts as a free, one-stop source where people interested in death and dying could find all kinds of information, like descriptions of estate and funeral planning and online discussions about spirituality. Even with the site's many other features, Mr. Krim is asked most often about the afterlife e-mail. Each user chooses a ''guardian angel'' who will notify FinalThoughts after the user has died. The site notifies intended recipients via e-mail that a message from the person who has died is waiting to be read. To ensure that Uncle Joe or Aunt Mary doesn't keel over in shock after receiving a message that appears to have come from the great beyond, each recipient must click on a hyperlink to view the message. So far, none of the afterlife e-mail messages have been activated because no one who has signed up for the service has died yet.