Viternus Blog

Last year, Mike mentioned this new idea he had for a social network. In one sentence, it would be a site that could privately store personal information long-term. It would be kind of like a time capsule only the information would not be visible to just anyone, it would be targeted so only certain people could see it.

Upon hearing the idea, I immediately became excited and began to build the website, devoting a great deal of time to its development.

Why did I immediately go all-in?

The timing was perfect. Mike mentioned the idea in casual conversation, but I jumped on it for the following reasons:

I was looking for a new project

I am a web developer by trade and had recently finished working on a large project at my day job. At the time I heard about the idea for Viternus, I wanted a new project with which I could implement the latest, most interesting, technology. Programming and solving problems is a means of therapy for me, so I found it easy to dive deep into the product.

A great idea with a relatable story

One of the first realizations I had when thinking about Viternus was that the concept could be compared to the movie P.S. I Love You. In the movie, Gerard Butler’s character schedules the delivery of many letters to his fiancée so that she would receive them after his terminal illness had caused him to pass away. Although the hope was that Viternus could be used for positive life events in the majority of cases, the idea that someone could schedule messages as in the movie was powerful. Viternus was a way to do this online automatically.

The site helps people

Our goal with the site is to give users a voice with which they can share feelings or thoughts at some time in the future. Most importantly, we strive to uphold the integrity and security of a user’s original message, which will ideally aid them in opening up emotionally in ways that they otherwise would not. We see the site being used for good, by sending messages that make others feel loved and happy.

Everyone we talked to loved the idea

When we first began to talk to friends and family about the concept of the site, everyone loved it. Many people immediately noticed the benefits that would come from Viternus and some even came up with new ways they would use it.

“We hope you enjoy the show”

We hope that you enjoy Viternus as much as we do. I plan to use it to send surprising videos from my archives to reconnect with old friends, store farewell messages just in case something happens, and to make sure I send messages to loved ones on anniversary dates.

To read part 1 of this blog post, click here.

The Name…

My themes were recording tidbits of my life, and allowing them to be around for a very long time, and delivered when and how I wanted even after I died.   But I didn’t have a name yet.   I saw something somewhere about origins of people and language and had an idea that a site with information that could extend into eternity should be based on an eternal language.  I did some rudimentary searching and while there are varying scholarly arguments about the oldest language – - I decided “Hey – I’m an English-speaking American so trying to come up with a name that could be a website based on a language I couldn’t read or write might be pretty dumb”.   Based on my knowledge the oldest written language that had some resemblance to the languages of today is Latin.  In fact Latin (along with Greek I believe — but I can’t understand Greek characters) is commonly referenced as the origin of many current languages – - at least English, French, and Spanish.   No disrespect to the other languages of the world – - but I had to go with something that I could understand – - even if just a little.

So I went online to a bunch of Latin-English translation sites and started entering terms to see what I could find that might be useful, and did internet domain name searches to see what was not already in use.    I was lucky to find that vita was Latin for life, and eternus (or aeternus) meant eternal.   After searching domain names and mistyping a bunch myself I decided I needed a hybrid — and mashed up the two terms to get Viternus.    So that’s where the name came from.

I do remember the first time I had the guts to talk about the concept – - I told my wife.   I’m not real sure, but I think it was in April or May – - which as I look back is cool because its Spring time in the US when plants are born and grow.   As I explained the concept she was OK with it – - but when I described how cool it would be if this had been around for a long time already and I could see a recording of my grandfather or grandmother, or see anything my dad was thinking about on any random day – - she started to cry, and they were happy tears, not sad.   Then I realized this could be something really interesting.

So that’s the core origin of the idea of Viternus.   I can take credit for all of it.  But an idea is one thing — making it real is another.  That’s where credit goes to others.   If it was just left up to me I suppose this site would probably not exist.   The only credit I claim on turning it into reality was I decided to describe it to Nate.   But that’s a future post – - probably best written by him.

Origo, Satus, Primoris, Initium

I’ve been asked where/how I came up with the idea for Viternus.  The quick answer is I’m not 100% sure what really drove it.   It wasn’t a single event.  I’d like to think it occured in an instance of brilliance, but it was a little slower and a lot less briliant - slowly emerging over a month or two.  I do sincerely claim it was an original idea and it had nothing to do with any other site/service I had seen or heard of anywhere else.   My career has been in Information Technology – but I wasn’t into social networking at the time.  I used the web a lot to lookup techincal information as part of my job, and didn’t have time or interest in  just surfing around for fun, or to find online services.    I actually criticized the initial surge of blogging that was emerging because it mostly seemed worthless.  Having a few million more people add their opinions didn’t seem very valuable to me – - it just made finding facts that much more difficult.   I realize this is a blog and an oxymoron in comparison to my original views on blogs — but that’s another story on how thoughts/feelings change over time!

If anything, the concept that eventually became Viternus was a response to the surge in real time services where millions of people felt it necessary to post worthless info about what they did that day, or were planning in the next 10 minutes.   I thought it was more useful to look at the other end of the continuum – - such as sending out information in slow, planned, or even unreal time – - as in after death.

I suppose other factors had to include age, watching our children become successful and moving on with their lives, and various pains and health concerns that sometimes make you wonder if you have told your loved ones enough about how you really feel about them.   So – - let’s get on with the real history.

As best I can recall it was February/March of 2008 when the concept first came to me.  I had an idea that it would be very useful/interesting to create a service where I could leave messages – - either typed as in an e-mail or document, recorded voice, or even video – - and have some way of getting them to our kids and (maybe/hopefully?) their kids – - even if I wasn’t around anymore.    Some of it was driven by how proud I am of them and wondering if I’ve really told them this directly enough, and some of it was driven because I was having pains in my chest and I wasn’t sure if they were just from exercise or something much worse.  My family history/genetic predisposition for heart problems is not bright.   I lost my dad early – - and while I cherish the pictures and memories I have of him it would be so much nicer to be able to read something he wrote, hear his voice, or see a video of him doing anything anytime I want.    I can dig out an old picture album but he died before video cameras were everywhere.  And pictures turn yellow, get lost, and are at my mother’s house, not easily available.  But again I’m running on a tangent…

I initially thought about just saving information – - as in a time capsule.  So I tried to buy some URLs with that name.  But those were not available.  I did get some that I won’t list here, but as I kept thinking about it just saving info wasn’t the real key.   The real key would be figuring out some way to control who could see the information and when.  You can easily post a video on YouTube, put messages and pictures on Facebook, and create links to friends, family, and co-workers on a ton of competing websites.   But what if I didn’t want to release some info now.    What if I only want to let it go if I am very sick and immobile, if I have a stroke, go into a coma, or die?   Very fun thoughts – huh?  

Anyways – - I found myself actually waking up in the middle of night and realizing my mind was trying to figure out how to solve this problem, and what this service should be called.    I have pages of notes with idea for URLs, and wasted a fair bit of time and money searching and paying for domain names at GoDaddy.    Then it hit me that electronically stored information didn’t really have to ever get deleted.   It could last forever – - for eternity.   Of course someone might have to eventually pay something to keep it around – but that was another problem I could work out with another month of poor sleep.   It also came to me that I might want to change the information/messages/video that I store as I get older.   I sure don’t have the same views on the world as I did when I was 20 years old, and it would be interesting to see what I thought when I was 10, 20, 30 and I won’t get specific on how much after that – at least for now.   So other uses for this service started emerging and I realized its purpose could be to hold info about your entire life – - not just things you want to tell people after you can’t do it physically anymore.   Plus some of the info might be just for my eyes – - that I will never want to release to anyone else to see.   What emerged were the concepts of  securing content, flexibility in designating who can see it, and triggers on when started emerging.

That describes the origination of the idea. In the next post, I’ll explain where the name came from and conclude this post.