Charge!

LifePosts.com is no longer totally free! That may seem like an odd thing to celebrate but it’s a big milestone. From the beginning, I’ve wanted LifePosts to be not dependent on advertising. In general, the media’s dependence on either ever-more-aggressive ads and sponsored posts or selling people’s private data seems like a losing formula. We have to devise services useful enough that people will pay for them. It seemed particularly important when it comes to what I call "hyper personal news" -- honoring the precious people in your life or the major life milestones.

To my LinkedIn connections who work in media companies, houses of worship, funeral homes, civic organizations, schools etc: now that we're generating revenue we can share! You can use the tools on your site and generate some additional income from people who buy full LifePosts.

Here's how we decided to do it: You try out the whole site for free, for 7 days, and then, if you like it, pay once and the site is yours “forever.” Always free to read and comment; no charge for that. We decided not to do a recurring revenue fee – like $19.99 year after year after year. I find those increasingly suspicious. We decided to take a risk and do one flat payment. Right now that’s $39.99 to create milestone. 

Thousands of people have made amazing LifePosts now. They're beautiful and compelling, often drawing stories and photos from a wide range of friends and family members. 

A reminder: it’s not just for people who have recently died but for creating permanent tribute biographies for anyone, sort of like a Wikipedia for regular people (and with multimedia and better formatting ☺). Pet memorials too.

In addition to tribute biographies/memorials, you can do a full range of celebrations -- major birthdays, graduations, births, wedding anniversaries, personal histories, retirements, military homecomings, vacations, etc). One woman did Anniversary of Sobriety, another did pet adoption, another honored her daughter becoming homecoming queen. The creativity is so fun to watch.

Let me know what you think.