New Funeral Technologies

Top Six Funeral Technologies That Help Share, Remember, Grieve, Celebrate, and Heal…and More!

Today, many new and innovative funeral technologies are widely recognized in the funeral industry as common services that help make a difficult situation a little easier. New funeral technology is helping families and friends who have lost a one heal, remember, and celebrate. Here are the most common new funeral technologies that most families are choosing:

Memorial Websites

A Memorial Website is a personalized website that is created to celebrate a person’s life. Friends and family can grieve and celebrate the memories of a loved one by sharing stories, kind thoughts, condolences, photos, and videos online. These online Memorial Tributes can be kept online for life so that friends and family can view the wonderful memories year after year and additional content can be added at any time.

DVD Video Tribute

See a Sample DVD Video Here:

In its simplest definition, a DVD Video Tribute is a professionally crafted video production which consists of digital images, video, and/or photos of your loved one, which are then combined and played simultaneously with the music or your choice. They can serve as an excellent presentation to complement your special funeral memorial service, and are a great way to help in the grief and healing process. A DVD Video Tribute helps tell the story of your loved ones life, and also creates a family heirloom that can be treasured and kept for years to come.

Memorial Diamonds

Created from a lock of hair or small amount of cremated ashes, memorial diamonds are an unique, heirloom memorial that will forever contain the essence of your loved one. These genuine, certified diamonds are created in a laboratory using your loved ones personal carbon and a diamond seed. By mimicking the earth’s natural high pressure, high temperatures necessary to create a diamond, in 70 days or less a personal diamond will emerge in one of the five brilliant colors you have selected. These memorial diamonds can be a stunning reminder of a loved ones life and unique spirit. Set into a beautiful piece of cremation jewelry, a memorial diamond can be worn close to the heart in a pendant, or into a memorial ring, bracelet or even earrings.

Gravestone Technology

Due to advances in microchip technology, your family can now include detailed text and a photo within a headstone to create a high tech, high end memorial. RFID-enabled data tags are an addition to a loved one’s tomb stone – you can enter the person’s name and choose some representative symbols, perhaps a small epitaph via the web – then you embed the tag into a larger traditional tombstone.

This new technology will allow future generations, visitors and historians to access both a story and genealogical information about the deceased from an internet enabled cell phone while at the markers physical location.

Funeral Webcasting

See the Many Features and Benefits of Funeral Webcasting Here:

For a wide variety of reasons, family members and friends are often unable to travel or attend the actual funeral service of a loved one. Using this innovative funeral technology, families and loved ones can now view the actual LIVE Memorial Service from the comfort of their own home, or whatever location is most convenient. Funeral Webcasting can be viewed on a private and secure website page by using password protection. This ensures that ONLY the people you wish to join in this Memorial Service can participate LIVE.

Memorial Reefs

A memorial reef is an environmentally-friendly burial option that is being used to replace the more traditional green burials and cremation ideas, such as cremation urns or ash scattering. The process includes mixing a loved ones remains into an environmentally safe concrete mixture and create a personalized memorial reef. These memorial reefs are then placed into the ocean. This combination of new funeral technologies, cremation, memorial reefs, and green burials can now offer families to provide their loved ones with a living legacy at sea.

Funeral Music

Custom Crafted Songs Announced as

Preferred Provider for Custom Funeral Music

Reston, VA., June 22, 2010 – FuneralResources.com, the nation’s leading educational online resource for all aspects of planning a funeral, has announced that Custom Crafted Songs will be a Preferred Provider for Funeral Directors and families who are searching for custom funeral music.

Chris Hill, Founder of FuneralResources.com, shares his first-hand experience about how meaningful this process can be for individuals and families; “When Anna offered the opportunity to create a custom crafted song for my mother, I was quick to accept this unique opportunity.  Not only was I amazed at how truly talented Anna was, and the beautiful song she created, but also with her choice of the song’s name, words, and the personal message that seemed to say exactly what I felt in my heart.”

Hill goes on to point out that creating custom funeral music can also help in coping with grief and loss; “As I look back, this was an extremely helpful and healing experience for me.  When someone spends the time to learn about your deepest feelings for someone you love so much, this serves as a form of grief counseling by allowing you to express your true feelings and emotions.  And the best part is that the ultimate outcome is your own personalized message and tribute to someone who means so much.”

Each custom crafted song contains unique melodies, words and expresses the essence of the life of a loved one.  These funeral songs are individually crafted funeral music which, when combined with a DVD Video Tribute, can create a very powerful memorial tribute that celebrates the wonderful life’s story and special memories of a loved one.

About FuneralResources.com

FuneralResources.com provides information and education resources to help families and Funeral Directors make the funeral planning a little easier.  This is accomplished by providing easy access to the most helpful information, free guides, educational videos on many of key funeral-related subjects including planning a memorial service, finding a funeral home, writing a eulogy, funeral etiquette, new funeral technology, grief counseling and end-of-life planning.

FuneralResources.com also provides a National Directory of Pre-Screened Funeral and Financial Professionals to help families find local key support they are searching for regarding topics such as selecting a funeral home or cemetery, estate or tax planning, as well as help with nearly all types of insurance or financial planning needs.

To learn more, visit FuneralResources.com

Funeral Webcasting – Choosing LIVE Versus On-Demand

Which is Best?  Can You Use Both?

Courtesy of Curtis Funk, President, FuneralRecording.com

As Funeral Homes and families can now “attend a funeral” and watch a loved one’s Memorial Service on the Internet, the number of families who are searching for…and choosing…this Internet webcast option are growing rapidly.

Differences Between LIVE Versus On-Demand

LIVE funeral webcasting connects families all over the world at the time of the funeral service and is the next-best thing to being there. It brings comfort to the family members who are unable to attend the funeral in person.

On-Demand funeral webcasting is viewed after the funeral service, and usually the actual video footage is made available within hours after the funeral services has ended.  Therefore, since they are already in a form of a “stored version”, they can be watched at any later date and as many times as the family member or loved one would like.

Most Funeral Homes Are Choosing On-Demand Webcasts

It is important to point out that, whether a family chooses a  Live or On-Demand webcast, both are available On-Demand for up to 90 days.  However, what we have found in the large majority of our experience in working with Funeral Homes is they are choosing to only broadcast this video footage of the service using On-Demand.

The main reason why mostFuneral Directors are choosing On-Demand versus LIVE Webcasts is because it is just plain easier and more efficient for everyone involved.   When faced with this educated decision, just about every Funeral Director woud not prefer to deal with things like setting up a computer, ensuring connection to the Internet, making sure the camera is working properly, ensuring the camera is pointed optimally for viewing, worrying about the need for Wi-Fi or an air card in remote locations, power outages, dealing with family member who cannot get determine how to get this to play.  So if you really think abou it, by choosing to use On-Demand, the only requirements are setting up the camera, pushing the “record” button, walking away, and coming back to end this after the service.

So it should be easy to understand based on what was mentioned above, given all of the LIVE broadcast possible challenges, the extensive work involved, as well as the increased probability that there can be many complications, we are seeing many more Funeral Directors choose On-Demand webcasts versus LIVE.

Focus on Offering This Service – NOT the Type of Service

Although we simply wanted to point out the fact that we do see a growing trend here, the key thing to note here is that some of our Funeral Homes are more than willing to utilize this LIVE technology service anyway.  We also currently have many funeral homes working with us today who absolutely love to broadcast their services LIVE, and have been providing us with some wonderful feedback from their families and their practice.

Whether a Fueral Director chooses either LIVE and On-Demand funeral webcasting, what we have concluded over the years is that each Funeral Home and family is usually unique, and each have a different set of needs.  Therefore, our job is not just to aggressively promote the service, but rather promoting and facilitating the “right” kind of webcast technology for each individual situation.

Whether you choose LIVE or On-Demand Funeral Webcasting (or both) is purely a personal choice, and I stongly encourage each Funeral Director to look review all of the advantages and disadvantages with a webcasting professional before making any decisions.

Last, but certainly not least, it is my strong opinion that if there are still any Funeral Directors today who have not yet embraced this popular funeral planning tool as a part of their practice, it is my strong belief that they will soon be saying something like: “I cannot afford NOT offering this helpful technology as a routine service that every family can take advantage of”. The good news is, most families to.

FuneralRecording.com works with funeral homes all over the United States providing superior funeral webcasting solutions, which are specifically tailored to the uniqueness of each Funeral Home’ and their families.  You can contact them directly with any questions or comments at info@funeralrecording.com or (801) 621-1492

Many People Cannot Attend a Funeral…
But Now They Can View it LIVE on the Internet

Funeral Webcasting
Since there are many valid reasons people cannot attend a Funeral, such as health, finances, age, work, or timing, there is new technology that exists today that is capable of broadcasting any funeral service LIVE on the Internet.  That’s right, LIVE!  All you need is to be somewhere that has an Internet connection, and you can now share in this special moment in real time.

But wait, there’s more…

It gets even better, because if you cannot attend the funeral in person, nor can you watch it LIVE on the Internet, the video footage of the memorial service can be stored for up to 90 days.  What a wonderful option this has become for so many people, especially given today’s economy and the financial challenges many people are facing.

Over the last few years Funeral Webcasting has been quickly gaining popularity among funeral homes and is now to the point where family members are beginning to request these types of services. So this is making this an extremely important for Funeral Directors to not only embrace these new technologies, but also proactively promote them to those who might be unaware that such amazing new tools are readily available

Key Benefits of Using Funeral Webcasting:

• Gives families and funeral directors a wider range of options which leads to a better overall funeral planning experience

• Helps families appreciate the funeral director more, knowing he or she is keeping up with such innovative and helpful technology

• Helps the families to join together in a much larger way for this special event

• Gives families the ability to offer this privately, to only those who they wish to invite, by using a password-protected website

• Families also have the ability to open up this memorial service of their loved one to anyone who may wish to pay their respects by choosing not to elect a password

• Allows families to include those you know really want to attend, but simply can’t make for whatever reason

• Offers family members in other countries, from all around the world, to join in their loved ones celebration of life

• Provide everyone the option to view this video again, or for the first time, after the memorial service for up to 90 days

 Given the many challenges many families face today when planning a funeral, webcasting is just one of the technologies being used to BOTH help improve the families funeral planning experience, as well as strengthen their relationships with their funeral directors.

For more information about this new tool and many of the other cutting edge funeral tools available today, you can simply CLICK HERE