“If I Die” Facebook App

The “farewell message” has made its way to social networking. A new Facebook app allows users to schedule a message or messages to post to their wall after they have died.

After installing the app, a person chooses three Facebook friends to be “trustees” — those who will verify the person’s eventual death. Then the person can record videos or write status updates to be posted posthumously, to be released all at once, or set on a schedule to post for weeks, months, or years after the person has died.

The app was created by Willook, an Israeli startup, who emphasizes that no one can see the messages you create until they are posted. They suggest using the app to leave behind one final farewell, or a long-held secret, or anything else that you’d like to wait to share until after you’re gone.

The company’s CEO Eran Alfonta came up with the idea for the app after married friends of his nearly died in a car crash on a vacation in Italy. “They stopped aside and drank water and relaxed and started speaking between themselves: ‘Oh my god, what would happen to the kids if something happened to me?'” he told NBCBayArea.com.

The app certainly has some concerned, some scoffing at its ridiculousness — and some intrigued by its innovation. What do you think? Would you use this app to leave your final farewells?