Obit Research » Tributes http://obitresearch.com Exploring the American obituary Thu, 08 Apr 2010 04:08:44 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 Tributes.com provides the most user-friendly memorial for South African Activist http://obitresearch.com/2009/10/09/tributes-com-provides-the-most-user-friendly-memorial-for-south-african-activist/ http://obitresearch.com/2009/10/09/tributes-com-provides-the-most-user-friendly-memorial-for-south-african-activist/#comments Fri, 09 Oct 2009 10:10:37 +0000 Ashley Bates http://obitresearch.com/?p=78 picture_of_masangoI found an interesting difference in how Tributes.com and Legacy.com displayed a recent AP article about the passing of South African anti-apartheid activist Frans “Ting-Ting” Masango. Take a look at Frans Masango on Tributes.com versus Frans Masango on Legacy.com.

The Tributes page looks and feels more like a memorial Web site and allows grievers to read the Associated Press article and sign the guest book in the same location. Conversely, Legacy.com users would need to somehow find a separate Legacy.com page unlinked to the article that allows users to sign the AP guestbook for Frans Masango. Legacy.com itself does not appear to currently sponsor a guest book for Frans Masango.

Given these options, a reasonable person would clearly opt to sign the Tributes.com guest book. This raises a few questions:

1) Why doesn’t a guest book for Frans Masango automatically appear on Legacy.com? Perhaps because he is not a U.S. citizen?
2) Why doesn’t Legacy.com adopt Tributes.com’s policy of posting AP obituaries and guest books in the same location?
3) Would it be profitable for Legacy.com to feature guest books of foreign celebrities? Or would this be unpopular among Legacy’s users?

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