Respectance.com

In Todd’s previous post, he mentioned that we received a lot of great feedback from our visitors over the past few months.

One remark we received quite often was from people who wanted to make a Tribute of a living person. Here’s one such email:

My grandfather is still alive but I was thinking it would be great if I could make a page like that for him now and ask everyone to bring their stories and pictures to share so he can enjoy it to. It doesnt feel quite right to put him with people who have passed. Do you know of a site like yours for living people?
Barbara F., Encino CA

and

I like your site Respectance and how you can tell the story of someones life. What about people who are still alive and want to tell their story?
D. Weal, Leeds UK

That’s why we’ve launched a sister site, today, called Picalily.com.com. This site has lots of the same features of Respectance such as uploading of photos, music, video and blogging-like tools. But Picalily pages are for living people with a story to tell.
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We originally launched Respectance.com in July of last summer. We had the idea that people might appreciate a site that allows them to connect, from wherever they are, with family and friends to easily create Tributes online and share memories of lost loved ones.

We received a lot of press coverage because this was a pretty new idea—though we thought it made a lot of sense and its time had come. We are simply addressing a real need that people have to come together to share stories, photos and memories of people important to them. With the convenience and growing ubiquitousness of the internet, we just make it easier to share those memories and preserve them online forever.
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Daniela Klemenschits was a former Austrian doubles player who teamed up with twin sister Sandra to play doubles on the WTA Tour and the ITF women’s circuit until 2006. Both of them had to retire after being diagnosed with abdominal cancer. I really didn’t know much about them, until I saw Daniela’s tribute at Respectance.

It is a sad day for tennis world and Klemenschits Family. Now Sandra will be solely fighting against the disease.

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When stars of an older Hollywood era pass on, I do feel sad. I don’t know quite why …I didn’t know them and, sometimes, I didn’t particularly enjoy all their movies, or I knew about the bad sides of them, or I just feel like it isn’t my place to mourn. But I did feel saddened by the news of Charlton Heston’s death, despite the political controversies that surrounded his latter years. Maybe I do miss an older era of entertainment. Anyway….

This is what Mike LaSalles, movie critic The SF Chronicle, wrote:

” Most celebrities are confident because they’re successful. They’ve achieved a certain level of acclaim and, understandably, they feel pretty good about themselves. But Charlton Heston, who died Saturday, wasn’t like that. His confidence was innate. He would have been an equally confident doctor, salesman, lawyer or laborer. He was always going to be the guy that people looked up to and asked, “What do you think, Chuck?”"

You can leave a memory of Charlton Heston at his Tribute.

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I think that we often look at older people and we have very entrenched, preconceived ideas of what older people are capable of, what they want, and how they think. For many the word slow springs to mind. Store clerks, businesses, we all assume that older people don’t want/aren’t capable of understanding new technology – that they don’t want it in their lives.

We are wrong to make assumptions about their needs. My own parents, who are well into their 70’s, are extremely computer literate. My dad for example, has his own Facebook page, Respectance page (yes I asked, no he doesn’t want to share!), his own blog and a lot of email accounts. My mom, who can’t type worth a darn, still has her own email accounts that she uses to keep in touch with her grandkids and friends. My mother-in-law got a new computer for Christmas, and let me tell you she ‘gets around the cyberspace block’. In fact, many of our members are older, and have embraced the technology that makes their families seem close.

Really intelligent people know how to learn. They keep learning all through their lives and their needs and desires evolve with their tools and knowledge base. Respectance is another piece of the ‘evolution’ in learning. We are helping people to learn a new way to get together and celebrate life, lives lived, and lives lost.

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