We’ve been working hard on the latest update of our memorial community. After the last update we received some input from users. Thank you so much for that. We have also analyzed what our current users do and don’t use a lot.
One of your comments, was that it felt too much ahead of what you were expecting. You preferred to have a simpler memorial platform to honor your loved ones, as opposed to a possible direction of bringing people together who can share their experiences or need support.
We have drawn the conclusion that it would be best to simplify things and cut down a bit on the social and community direction we could have taken on even further.
The big gift we wanted to bring you, is that all tributes will be available without payments. In all honesty, the platform started in 2006 based on personal happenings of the founders. Still we have to keep our head above the water, and have to pay for programmers, community managers and of course servers and such. That is why we need to find a model that serves the true cause of helping people keeping memories alive of loved ones and at the same time make sure that our site runs without losses.
We have now switched to a model where all tributes and memories will always be available, but with a commercial banner in it somewhere. If you do not desire such a banner in a tribute, you can simply sponsor the tribute and the banner will be gone for that period. We think this is a friendlier solution then turning tributes less visible for others when there is no sponsoring.
The other things we have done is add some features to the tribute settings. You can now change the header more easily and it will appear nicely in your normal web browser and on your smartphone. Respectance has been completely optimized so it can be used on modern web browsers, tablets and smartphones.
It’s also possible to like what others are saying with our heart symbol. And we have added a candle icon in the portraits of the lost loved ones. We think this is respectful and warm and it also helps us to differentiate between users of the platform and those who are no longer here. We want to avoid awkward situations.
The languages are under construction. We will be available in English, Dutch, Thai and Russian soon. Other languages will be added as well. This means that everybody can see the site in their own language, but the content stays the same. Imagine you live in Australia, and your nana lives in Thailand. You probably will feel comfortable in English. Your nana can also watch and participate in the site in her own Thai language. The idea is that we’re in this global village, where we share the same emotions, but the language barrier should never be in the way.
Respectance is also no longer an investor vehicle, it really is a project of serving new traditions for old unavoidable happenings by using community and new techology. The project is maintained by IIZT amsterdam, an online marketing agency. We hope to make sure that we can always profit from their insights.
As ever, we really welcome your suggestions, remarks, questions. You can always reach us via social media or via mail. On our social media we also hope to offer you inspiration and positive thoughts on dealing with loss or finding new ways.
Share your memories,
kind regards