UK Start Up Spotlight: Dead Soci.al

If you’ve ever watched Shark Tank than you know that one of Shark Kevin O’Leary’s favorite industries is the death industry. He always candidly jokes that everybody dies so it’s a sure market. That’s the market that deadsoci.al is in.

Dead Soci.al was founded by James Norris and unveiled at SXSWi in the UKTI booth at the South By Southwest trade show.

Dead Soci.al is a free tool that allows anyone to create private and scheduled messages. The messages can be distributed through email and across the social web once the user dies.  The main purpose for Dead Soci.al is to let users say goodbye the way they want to.  Dead Soci.al was prominently featured in the SXSW Startup village as well.

More after the break

If you think that social media posthumous is a bit morbid, Dead Soci.al wants you to consider the amount of social interaction after somebody dies. With Dead Soci.al the person who has passed away can be, in some elements, part of the discussion. To that end Dead Soci.al highlights the Twitter activity surrounding pop sensation Whitney Houston’s death.

In a recent interview with British freelance journalist Katie Moffat, Deadsocial founder James Norris explains that the purpose of Deadsocial is to extend a persons online legacy. Norris said we spend time every day or every week curating our current online legacy, with Deadsocial you can control your legacy beyond your years. Regardless of the 13 year old age limit on Facebook parents are creating Facebook pages for their unborn children which essentially go live the minute someone is born, this way the legacy ends with messages from the subject themselves.

Norris says that with Deadsocial “There’s no reason you should stop being able to communicate and tell people how you feel about them, and keep people interested in your assets and your digital content after you pass away.”

Norris went on to say that people in the western world “Don’t address death until it addresses us”.

While Norris admitted that some people may be offended by messages from the dead, or even saddened by them, he said from his personal experience he would cherish messages that he knew were intended to reach him after a friend or loved one died.

Deadsocial allows you to create your own Deadsocial profile along with messages that can be delivered upon your death via Facebook, Twitter and Google+. To find out more about it go to deadsoc.ial