Facebook app lets you have the real ‘last word’

If you’re ever in a casual conversation at a party and want to get rid of whomever you’re stuck chatting with, there’s one sure way to go about it; steer the conversation to the topic of death (the more personalized, the better), and you’ll find yourself being left alone. Such is the atavistic fear of most of us to death, that we don’t even consider the possibility of our demise – well, ever.

Considering the tendency of most people (except the morbid among us) to drown out the possibility – actually, reality – of our essential demise, Israeli startup Willook deserves kudos for its Facebook app, called “If I Die,” a sort of virtual last will and testament. When you sign up for the app, you’re given the opportunity to author a text or video message, which the company will store (for a fee). After recording the message, you choose three “trustees” from among your Facebook friends to put in charge of the message after you’ve journeyed to “the other side.” Upon confirmation of your death, the app forwards the message to your trustees, who act as “executors” of your virtual will, either contacting people or institutions mentioned, or releasing to the public your final message to the world

A morbid idea indeed, but one that fills an important niche in the lives – or rather, deaths – of many people. There are some things you just can’t put in a will – an apology to someone you offended but never got around making amends to, instructions on how to feed your cat to the lucky “heir,” or even a “message to the nation.” That’s exactly what Israeli historian Michael Har-Segor did; this week is the first anniversary of his death, and his trustees decided to release a five minute video he made before he died, discussing his feelings and suggestions about Israel’s future, the peace process, and so on. Har-Segor had a weekly program about history on Army Radio and he refrained from giving his opinion on political issues, perhaps because he felt that as a public personality it was inappropriate to take political sides.

Without If I Die, it’s unlikely Har-Segor’s message would have reached the Internet. You can’t pre-date a Youtube upload, so if he had put the video up a year ago it would have been clear that he was taking political sides – something he was trying to avoid during his lifetime. And the likelihood that he would have uploaded a video he had recorded and was storing on his computer is also pretty low – no doubt Har-Segor would have had other things on his mind than uploading a video to the Internet as he approached “the end.”

If I have any criticism of If I Die, it would be of the somewhat flippant tone of the web site, and a (to my mind) rather tasteless PR campaign to spread the word, in which operators called people through the U.S. to tell them that “death could arrive at any time.”

Or maybe that’s just my own fear of “the end” coming to the fore. Regardless, Willook should be commended for at least reminding people of their ultimate fate with its If I Die app.