NEWS

Ever Loved’s funeral marketplace undercuts undertakers

Published

5 years ago

February 12, 2020

ever loveds funeral marketplace undercuts undertakers

Fifty percent of families are scared they can’t cover the cost of a funeral. They end up overpaying because no one wants to comparison shop amidst a tragedy. That’s why ex-Googler Alison Johnston’s startup Ever Loved built a free funeral crowdfunding tool. Now it’s addressing one of the most expensive parts of saying goodbye: burial. Today Ever Loved launches its online marketplace for caskets, urns, headstones and memorial jewelry.

By sidestepping the overhead of a physical funeral home, Ever Loved can offer better prices while still earning a 10% margin. Its caskets cost 50% less than the average sold at a mortuary, according to the National Funeral Directors Association.

When I called a local San Francisco funeral home, the high markups came into focus. They quoted me $2,795 for a casket sold for $1,200 on Ever Loved.

Ever Loved marketplace

“Most people don’t think to — or don’t want to — plan funerals in advance, which means that when someone passes away, the family is often scrambling,” Johnston tells me. “When this rush to make decisions is paired with extreme grief, many people don’t do anywhere close to the same amount of research as they would with another several-thousand-dollar purchase. When combined with the fact that most funeral homes don’t publish their prices online, it’s easy for families to spend much more than they need to.”

Johnston co-founded Ever Loved in late 2017 after a family member was diagnosed with terminal cancer. She discovered how few resources there were available for helping people plan and pay for funerals. She’d previously worked at Q&A app Aardvark through its acquisition by Google, then started online tutoring startup InstaEDU that eventually sold to Chegg. The consumer website building and e-commerce tools she’d grown used to weren’t available in the funeral industry, so she set out to build them. Ever Loved has raised seed funding from Social Capital and gone through Y Combinator.

Ever Loved co-founder and CEO Alison Johnston

“Tech too often merely makes life and work easier for those who already have it good,” she told me last year. “Tech that tempers tragedy is a welcome evolution for Silicon Valley.”

Ever Loved’s first focus was its funeral crowdfunding tool that let families ask the decedent’s loved ones to help contribute to offset the costs. Donors could leave a tip for Ever Loved, but otherwise it charged nothing beyond credit card processing fees. The tool was paired with a memorial website builder that families could use for distributing invites and collecting memories. Now Ever Loved is helping people plan thousands of funerals per month with revenue up nearly 20X year-over-year.

Now that it’s helping families raise money for remembrance services, Ever Loved wants to make sure they don’t get ripped off. The fact that there’s such low pricing transparency at funeral homes should clue you in that they try to pass off steep markups since customers might not have the energy to keep looking. “The average funeral home only helps with a funeral once every three days, meaning that many funeral homes need to charge high prices in order to cover their own fixed costs,” Johnston explains.

Remove the overhead costs and assist customers across geographies and there’s room for a strong business with more affordable prices. For example, a Stanford Blue Casket costs $990 on Ever Loved while one LA funeral home charges $1,600. The Last Supper Pieta Casket is $1,500 on Ever Loved but $6,580 from the funeral home. That funeral home had both of these listed under different names, further hindering the ability of customers to find a fair price.

Ever Loved Funeral Crowdfunding

Ever Loved can also more quickly adapt to the diversification of burial options. Between concerns about costs, land use, environmental impact and connection to family and nature, many are looking beyond caskets. Cremation became more popular than burial in the U.S. in 2017. Liquid cremation is now legal in 18 states, and Washington just began allowing body composting.

“We’re seeing a lot of independent providers popping up to do everything from turning your loved one’s ashes into a diamond ring to shooting their ashes into space to planting them under a tree in the forest,” says Johnston. Any single funeral home is unlikely to offer the breadth customers are looking for. “Our goal is to make all of your options available to you in an easily digestible format.”

Ever Loved’s business is protected by the FTC’s Funeral Rule that bars mortuaries from refusing or charging extra to handle a casket or urn purchased elsewhere. That means Ever Loved customers can combine shopping online with in-person memorial services from a local funeral home. Still, it’s a tough business. Startups like HaloLife, Clarity and After I Go have all shut down. Most others merely offer memorial sites, or funeral home search engines.

Ever Loved product page

That means Ever Loved’s biggest competitors, beyond the standard just accepting the local mortuary’s prices, are Google and Amazon. Often they surface the same prices as Ever Loved with comparable shipping, though Google could sometimes find a slight discount by buying straight from the manufacturer, while Amazon was missing some top brands. Costco and Walmart sell funeral products too. But Johnston says “many people don’t feel like generic, mass-market stores are the appropriate place to purchase funeral products.” I agree it might feel disrespectful buying an urn from the same place you get toilet paper.

“We also put a huge focus on customer service, which you don’t get at Walmart, Costco or Amazon,” Johnston tells me. “When you’re grieving and spending thousands of dollars, we’ve found that this is very important.”

As the demographic planning funerals gets more tech-savvy over time and want personalized farewells rather than cookie-cutter conclusions, there’s a chance to change the status quo. Discussing death is becoming less taboo. Being smart about paying for it should too.

TechCrunch

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NEWS

OpenAI Introduces Fine-Tuning for GPT-4 and Enabling Customized AI Models

Published

2 months ago

August 21, 2024

Max

OpenAI Introduces Fine-Tuning for GPT-4 and Enabling Customized AI Models

OpenAI has today announced the release of fine-tuning capabilities for its flagship GPT-4 large language model, marking a significant milestone in the AI landscape. This new functionality empowers developers to create tailored versions of GPT-4 to suit specialized use cases, enhancing the model’s utility across various industries.

Fine-tuning has long been a desired feature for developers who require more control over AI behavior, and with this update, OpenAI delivers on that demand. The ability to fine-tune GPT-4 allows businesses and developers to refine the model’s responses to better align with specific requirements, whether for customer service, content generation, technical support, or other unique applications.

Why Fine-Tuning Matters

GPT-4 is a very flexible model that can handle many different tasks. However, some businesses and developers need more specialized AI that matches their specific language, style, and needs. Fine-tuning helps with this by letting them adjust GPT-4 using custom data. For example, companies can train a fine-tuned model to keep a consistent brand tone or focus on industry-specific language.

Fine-tuning also offers improvements in areas like response accuracy and context comprehension. For use cases where nuanced understanding or specialized knowledge is crucial, this can be a game-changer. Models can be taught to better grasp intricate details, improving their effectiveness in sectors such as legal analysis, medical advice, or technical writing.

Key Features of GPT-4 Fine-Tuning

The fine-tuning process leverages OpenAI’s established tools, but now it is optimized for GPT-4’s advanced architecture. Notable features include:

Enhanced Customization: Developers can precisely influence the model’s behavior and knowledge base.
Consistency in Output: Fine-tuned models can be made to maintain consistent formatting, tone, or responses, essential for professional applications.
Higher Efficiency: Compared to training models from scratch, fine-tuning GPT-4 allows organizations to deploy sophisticated AI with reduced time and computational cost.

Additionally, OpenAI has emphasized ease of use with this feature. The fine-tuning workflow is designed to be accessible even to teams with limited AI experience, reducing barriers to customization. For more advanced users, OpenAI provides granular control options to achieve highly specialized outputs.

Implications for the Future

The launch of fine-tuning capabilities for GPT-4 signals a broader shift toward more user-centric AI development. As businesses increasingly adopt AI, the demand for models that can cater to specific business needs, without compromising on performance, will continue to grow. OpenAI’s move positions GPT-4 as a flexible and adaptable tool that can be refined to deliver optimal value in any given scenario.

By offering fine-tuning, OpenAI not only enhances GPT-4’s appeal but also reinforces the model’s role as a leading AI solution across diverse sectors. From startups seeking to automate niche tasks to large enterprises looking to scale intelligent systems, GPT-4’s fine-tuning capability provides a powerful resource for driving innovation.

OpenAI announced that fine-tuning GPT-4o will cost $25 for every million tokens used during training. After the model is set up, it will cost $3.75 per million input tokens and $15 per million output tokens. To help developers get started, OpenAI is offering 1 million free training tokens per day for GPT-4o and 2 million free tokens per day for GPT-4o mini until September 23. This makes it easier for developers to try out the fine-tuning service.

As AI continues to evolve, OpenAI’s focus on customization and adaptability with GPT-4 represents a critical step in making advanced AI accessible, scalable, and more aligned with real-world applications. This new capability is expected to accelerate the adoption of AI across industries, creating a new wave of AI-driven solutions tailored to specific challenges and opportunities.

GOOGLE

This Week in Search News: Simple and Easy-to-Read Update

Published

3 months ago

June 30, 2024

Entireweb News Bot

This Week in Search News: Simple and Easy-to-Read Update

Here’s what happened in the world of Google and search engines this week:

1. Google’s June 2024 Spam Update

Google finished rolling out its June 2024 spam update over a period of seven days. This update aims to reduce spammy content in search results.

2. Changes to Google Search Interface

Google has removed the continuous scroll feature for search results. Instead, it’s back to the old system of pages.

3. New Features and Tests

Link Cards: Google is testing link cards at the top of AI-generated overviews.
Health Overviews: There are more AI-generated health overviews showing up in search results.
Local Panels: Google is testing AI overviews in local information panels.

4. Search Rankings and Quality

Improving Rankings: Google said it can improve its search ranking system but will only do so on a large scale.
Measuring Quality: Google’s Elizabeth Tucker shared how they measure search quality.

5. Advice for Content Creators

Brand Names in Reviews: Google advises not to avoid mentioning brand names in review content.
Fixing 404 Pages: Google explained when it’s important to fix 404 error pages.

6. New Search Features in Google Chrome

Google Chrome for mobile devices has added several new search features to enhance user experience.

7. New Tests and Features in Google Search

Credit Card Widget: Google is testing a new widget for credit card information in search results.
Sliding Search Results: When making a new search query, the results might slide to the right.

8. Bing’s New Feature

Bing is now using AI to write “People Also Ask” questions in search results.

9. Local Search Ranking Factors

Menu items and popular times might be factors that influence local search rankings on Google.

10. Google Ads Updates

Query Matching and Brand Controls: Google Ads updated its query matching and brand controls, and advertisers are happy with these changes.
Lead Credits: Google will automate lead credits for Local Service Ads. Google says this is a good change, but some advertisers are worried.
tROAS Insights Box: Google Ads is testing a new insights box for tROAS (Target Return on Ad Spend) in Performance Max and Standard Shopping campaigns.
WordPress Tag Code: There is a new conversion code for Google Ads on WordPress sites.

These updates highlight how Google and other search engines are continuously evolving to improve user experience and provide better advertising tools.

FACEBOOK

Facebook Faces Yet Another Outage: Platform Encounters Technical Issues Again

Published

7 months ago

March 20, 2024

Max

Uppdated: It seems that today’s issues with Facebook haven’t affected as many users as the last time. A smaller group of people appears to be impacted this time around, which is a relief compared to the larger incident before. Nevertheless, it’s still frustrating for those affected, and hopefully, the issues will be resolved soon by the Facebook team.

Facebook had another problem today (March 20, 2024). According to Downdetector, a website that shows when other websites are not working, many people had trouble using Facebook.

This isn’t the first time Facebook has had issues. Just a little while ago, there was another problem that stopped people from using the site. Today, when people tried to use Facebook, it didn’t work like it should. People couldn’t see their friends’ posts, and sometimes the website wouldn’t even load.

Downdetector, which watches out for problems on websites, showed that lots of people were having trouble with Facebook. People from all over the world said they couldn’t use the site, and they were not happy about it.

When websites like Facebook have problems, it affects a lot of people. It’s not just about not being able to see posts or chat with friends. It can also impact businesses that use Facebook to reach customers.

Since Facebook owns Messenger and Instagram, the problems with Facebook also meant that people had trouble using these apps. It made the situation even more frustrating for many users, who rely on these apps to stay connected with others.

During this recent problem, one thing is obvious: the internet is always changing, and even big websites like Facebook can have problems. While people wait for Facebook to fix the issue, it shows us how easily things online can go wrong. It’s a good reminder that we should have backup plans for staying connected online, just in case something like this happens again.