The absence of a loved one often makes milestones like weddings and holidays bittersweet. But what if you could record a message in advance and have it delivered when an important moment arrives?
That’s the idea behind a new online business founded by a local entrepreneur. The Web site is called Message Through Time (www.messagethroughtime.com), and the service it offers is simple: It allows a person to record a video message and set it to be delivered at any time in the future – tomorrow, next year, or two decades from now. The messages can be retrieved via an e-mail link or using a pass-code.
The site was dreamed up by Janice Beauregard, a North Smithfield resident who used to work in the insurance industry and is now studying nursing.
The original inspiration for Message Through Time started with a televised science documentary on the human life cycle, which featured a striking time-lapse graphic that showed a woman’s progression from birth to old age in just 60 seconds.
The image resonated with Beauregard, who gave birth to her own daughter at age 40. “I thought, jeez, we won’t be around forever,” she said in an interview last week. “And I started thinking about, gee, it would be nice if we could stay in her life when we’re not around. … Imagine if we’re not around for, say, her 50th birthday, and she gets a video from us saying we hope life has been good to you, we hope you’re happy, we hope you’ve gotten what you wanted out of life.”
Beauregard’s friends liked the idea, as well, and she soon hit on the idea of using the Internet to deliver the videos. A wide variety of online video platforms are growing in popularity these days, with broadcasters like YouTube or Hulu and chat and message services like Gmail or Facebook. Beauregard hired a company to check, though, and found no other site that offered a service like the one she was contemplating.
With help from the R.I. Economic Development Corporation’s Every Business Counts program, Beauregard hired Pawtucket-based Xzito Creative Solutions to design and develop the site, which went live in November. A second beta, or test, version will be launched in five weeks.
Message Through Time is being offered as a free service. Beauregard said she hopes the site can turn a profit through advertising and sales of upgraded service packages. She also said the site has a sizable amount of storage space, and no video will ever be deleted.
Of course, people change e-mail addresses far more frequently than they change postal addresses, which could lead to problems when a message is not meant to be delivered for 20 years or more. To solve that, Beauregard said, the service will send a monthly reminder to people who have recorded messages asking them to make sure all their recipients’ addresses are up-to-date.
Beauregard sees a wide range of possible uses for Message Through Time’s service beyond the original concept. In December, for example, the company held an event at the Warwick Mall to allow military families to record videos for overseas service members. A few businesses are also using the site to distribute messages to co-workers and clients, she said.
“The big thing is, obviously, that [videos] can be sent in the future, but it is a day-to-day thing, too,” she said. “It’s something you could record that could be sent 20 years from now, or tomorrow.”
Beauregard can even see people recording messages to be sent to their future selves – for example, as a reminder of a New Year’s resolution. She also visited a high school recently where seniors recorded messages that they will receive in five years. •
