When 92-year-old Ruben Edmond passed away this summer, not everyone could make it to Norfolk, Va., to say goodbye to the man whose family includes five children, 28 grandchildren, 29 great-grandchildren, and five great-great grandchildren.
So while some mourners streamed into the funeral home to pay their last respects, others from North Carolina to Hawaii, watched streaming video of the ceremony online and visited a tribute page produced by the funeral home that helped organize Edmond's last rites.
"We used technology to pay our last tribute - it was just awesome," said Edmond's 64-year-old daughter, Estelle Edmond-Bussey of Chesapeake, Va. Family members regathered later to watch a replay of the ceremony, giving her a chance to remember "the things I was numb to the day of the service."
The funeral business is a solemn profession steeped in tradition, but as people grow used to living more and more of their daily life online, funeral directors and self-described "end-trepreneurs" are putting the latest Internet tools at the service of the eternal.
Individual Web users have been creating virtual tributes to their friends and relatives since the early days of the Internet. But today, digital farewells are an increasingly common part of online culture, with poignant memorial videos mixed with the usual fare of raunchy jokes and minidramas appearing on sites like YouTube and MySpace. As a result, Web savvy entrepreneurs and funeral professionals are beginning to formalize computer-based remembrances.
"The tradition has been that what's left is a choice quote carved into granite," said David Weinberger, a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School. "On the Web, that conversation can actually continue. . . . The difference between that and the quotation on the headstone and the line written in the memorial book at the funeral is stark."
When Tammy Brown's 17-year-old son, Larry, died before her eyes in an April car crash, Brown found unexpected solace in his MySpace page, where his friends continued to communicate with him, leaving birthday wishes and other memories. The Jacksonville, Fla., resident set up her own MySpace page, added her son as a friend, and began to post poetry, remembrances, and photos.
"Now my whole life, as far as Larry is concerned, is to keep his memory alive forever," Brown said. "The idea that somebody out there is speaking or thinking about him - that's really huge."
Brown sought connection with others who understood the wrenching grief that stayed with her, and discovered Otrib.com, a full-service site for final farewells, which Brown uses to communicate daily with other grief-stricken parents.
Sam Tharp, a vice president of product at business information search engine ZoomInfo in Waltham, launched Otrib this year, comparing it to a "TripAdvisor for the afterlife" that helps people create a tribute page for their loved one, plan the logistics of a funeral, and connect with others who share their grief.
A few years ago, when his grandmother died, Tharp made his own tribute video and realized that he could help build a tool that could let people share and grieve together. He says most of his fellow techies - who, like most people, don't dwell on mortality - give him a "blank stare" when he tries to explain his project, but he is convinced the platform can be a viable business.
Jeff Taylor might agree. Taylor, chief executive of Eons, the social network for baby boomers, sees the Web as an obvious place for a life to continue to evolve. Putting tribute pages online is simply an extension of something he started when he founded the job site Monster.com, which gave help wanted ads a new life online.
"One of my views of a resume is that it should always be in distribution and easy to change; why shouldn't a person's life story be always in distribution?" he said.
Eons, based in Boston, has an Obits section mixed in with its other features, like People, Fun, Love, Money, and Body, and Taylor said the section is doing so well that he plans to carve out as a separate website open to more than just the members of the Eons social network, who are over 50.
Eon's tributes section includes recent obituaries of notable people, as well as services - like obituary alerts that let people know when people from their past die. There are humorous aspects, like a dead-or-alive trivia game, and an area for people to set up their own tribute pages.
"It's about how do you fully utilize the new tools that are changing the way something's been done for more than 100 years," Taylor said.
The trend is in its earliest stages, but it's probably not surprising that funeral directors have generally been slow to embrace emerging technology. Blogging tools, photo-sharing websites, online social networks, and video websites may not seem a natural medium for the dignity essential in what may be a defining moment in a family's life.
"The people who join funeral service usually do it to serve families and help people, what draws them to it is partly the tradition," said Robin Heppell, a funeral director for 20 years who now goes by the moniker Funeral Futurist and consults with funeral homes that are interested in increasing their tech offerings.
But the biggest barrier may be a profession whose traditions and techniques are handed down from generation to generation. "First and foremost is that probably the vast majority of funeral homes don't even have websites," said David Walkinshaw, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Funeral Directors Association.
Local funeral homes that do have websites usually have at least an online obituary with a photo, and might offer a guestbook for comments, he said.
Philip Ly, an entrepreneur from Tolland, Conn., who already streams weddings live at IDoStream.com, is beginning to partner with funeral homes to offer the service for funerals.
He demonstrated his service at the National Professional Videographer Association meeting this month, has partnered with a videographer and two Rhode Island funeral homes, and hopes to sign up his first virtual funeral soon.
Bob Biggins, past president of the National Funeral Directors Association and owner of the Magoun-Biggins Funeral Home in Rockland, said that forward-thinking funeral homes have embraced online features.
For three years, he has offered streaming video tributes, and may soon offer funeral webcasts.
"I'm not convinced it has hit the mainstream," he said. "But I think it's critical that we need to look at families today as requiring new and innovative services, but at the same time, never losing sight of traditional ceremony and ritual."
Carolyn Y. Johnson can be reached at cjohnson@globe.com.
