Dipping into the Blogpond

When Obits was launched a year ago, there was very limited competition in online funeral notices in Australia. The main players were the newspaper sites:- Fairfax (who link notices from The Syndey Morning Herald, The Age, The Newcastle Herald, Fairfax Community Newspapers and Illawarra Mercury) and News Limited. There was also the regional niche website onlinememorials.com.au, which services the Central and mid North Coast areas of NSW.

During the year www.godscall.com.au popped up, but then faded away just as quickly & the website has been down for a few months. It is still referenced from “partner site” www.aufunerals.com.

The next entrant into the competing web space was www.funeralsaustralia.com.au. They are a niche directory site who advertised heavily on Google Adwords initially, however it seems they have only been successful in getting a handful of paying businesses – and at $352 p.a. is probably a little overpriced.

It’s a tough industry to crack. Funeral directors in Australia (and I AM generalising here), are very traditional. They have often come from a family history in the industry, and are used to doing things the way they have always been done. New technology uptake in the funeral industry is not fast. But that’s ok, our website will be here when the rest of the funeral industry is ready for us. I know the public both needs and wants our service, judging from our visitor numbers, and the emails I get.

A couple of month’s ago, a new website stormed onto the market. It’s called www.obituary.com.au, and if the feedback we are getting is any indication then they seem to be making enemies faster than they are making friends.

This company is actually writing to bereaved families soliciting money for their online (and offline) memorial products. An excerpt from their letter;

“I write to express my sympathy to you at the very sad time of the loss of your dearly beloved ****.

To remember him sympathetically and fittingly we would like to let you know that we have established an obituary web-site……..

….Also, all those who are held dear by their families can have a full obituary published, not just those famous enough to have a newspaper profile.”

They then go on to outline their “This was ****’s Life” memorial book. The letters are signed “Joy L. Rutledge, (Dr)., Chief Executive Officer, Medilink Australia Pty Ltd”.

I find this form of marketing unethical and invasive. There are proper channels for introducing this type of product (ie the funeral arrangers), that are much more appropriate. We have received numerous calls from funeral directors who are outraged at the audacity and arrogance of Australian On-Line Obituary Notices and its general manager Dr Henry Glennie.

This site is also placing death and funeral notices from other sources without consent from either the family or funeral director. They claim to be entering the death and funeral notices from the newspaper paper editions, but it’s odd that the notices are placed with typos intact. I wonder how they stand with potential copyright violation? Glennie maintains they are NOT violating copyright – that this is “public domain” information. Is this type of public information protected by copyright laws? How would they fair if challenged by News Limited or Fairfax?

They purport to be a “thoroughly reputable and ethical business”, but in my opinion they are digging their own proverbial.