Preserving Memories with Beternal

Jimmy Spikes

[00:00:00] Ed Watters: To overcome, you must educate. Educate not only yourself, but educate anyone seeking to learn. We are all Dead America, we can all learn something. To learn, we must challenge what we already understand. The way we do that is through conversation. Sometimes we have conversations with others, however, some of the best conversations happen with ourselves. Reach out and challenge yourself; let's dive in and learn something new right now.

[00:00:55] Today we're with Jimmy Spikes, he is the creator and CEO of Beternal. Jimmy, could you please introduce yourself and let people know just a little bit about you, please?

[00:01:08] Jimmy Spikes: Hi. Well, I'm Jimmy Spikes founder of Beternal, a memory preservation software program with a distribution system. I'm currently living in Puerto Rico. So ex military, just kind of a jack of all trades as far as other jobs and just needed to build a platform in order for us to maintain and save our memories for our future.

[00:01:33] Ed Watters: Yeah, it's kind of unique what you've done here. Uh, so Beternal, it is a system online that we can upload our digital assets to. And then we can assign like tokens to individuals to accept when we either die or get incapacitated, is that correct?

[00:01:59] Jimmy Spikes: Yes, sir. It'll send out distribution. It'll distribute your legacy once you've been confirmed that you've been passed away or, like you said, incapacitated.

[00:02:10] Ed Watters: Yeah. Is there any other systems like this out there, Jimmy?

[00:02:15] Jimmy Spikes: There's a couple of people who started somewhat in this term and in this phrase since I began. Um, a lot of them have the same similarities, but nobody really has the distribution aspect that Beternal does. It's more of a social media aspect and that's really what I'm trying to go away from just because my feelings about some of the social media aspects and how they run their businesses.

[00:02:43] Ed Watters: So can, can somebody, like me, like record messages for a later time for somebody and distribute those also?

[00:02:55] Jimmy Spikes: Yes, we do have a system in place for scheduled media because I'm [00:03:00] the first and foremost worst person as far as important dates. Birthdays, anniversaries, anything like that. But with Beternal, you can sit down in one day tell everybody in your entire family happy birthday, record them a message, assign it to them on the scheduled media, and it'll make sure that they get it on their birthday. That way you at least did something because I've been on the backside of that a lot of times.

[00:03:28] Ed Watters: So how did you come up with the idea and how long has it taken to develop this?

[00:03:37] Jimmy Spikes: In 2020 I was at the beach one day and just like anybody else during that time, during the pandemic, I was looking for inspiration and just kind of lost on where I was at in my life. Obviously a new place, you know, new people, new challenges. And so I started flipping through my phone and I was like, I need some inspiration.

[00:04:00] So I was looking for stuff from my mom who had passed away a couple of years earlier and come to find out, I had one picture. That was the only thing I had left on my phone of me and my mother. Everything that she had uploaded to social media and everything that she had saved on the storage platforms was gone.

[00:04:23] Because once you assign it to social media, they own the rights to it. And then if you don't give anybody the information on the other storage platforms, once you're gone, they just get rid of it too. Because they're not getting any money. So it was kind of like my entire life story with my mom and my family history that she had done all the digitization and all of that interesting stuff too, was gone.

[00:04:50] And that's where the idea for Beternal came from, because it was aggravating. My mom was a tech person, so she had a new iPhone every time they came out. So she loved uploading that stuff to Instagram and Facebook, where you assume is a safe place. But in reality, they own the rights to it as soon as it crosses their data pool.

[00:05:15] Ed Watters: That's very interesting. So, what type of assets can you upload on the platform?

[00:05:23] Jimmy Spikes: Anything that you choose. Videos, right now we're having, it's mainly just uploads. So, you'll upload videos, private audio messages, uh, pictures. If you have some data, maybe you've taken pictures of some recipes and you want to send them to save them for somebody, you can do that.

[00:05:47] And on the recipe thing, you know, I mean, I don't know about you, but my family cooks. And everybody cooks something really good. So how cool would that be to have like your dad, or mom, or uncle, or whoever [00:06:00] make a recipe in front of you and show you how it's done? Because it never fails, if I try to make something my dad does it never comes out right. Because I don't really know what he's doing.

[00:06:14] Ed Watters: Yeah, yeah. That's a good point. You know, so you could actually create courses for people and pass those courses on and educate people for years using the platform.

[00:06:29] Jimmy Spikes: Well, years in a personal aspect. But, you know, if you get on YouTube, and I use YouTube a lot because it's a, it's a wealth of information. But trying to find the video that actually is worth watching, can take you a month. Having access to all the information doesn't necessarily equate to getting the right information.

[00:06:56] Ed Watters: Yeah, that is very true. So, what's the structure like for people that want to purchase this system? And, so there's a transfer of knowledge, so there's got to be a transfer of cost at some point or time. How does that work? And does, is there a monthly fee or do you pay yearly and does that transfer over to the recipients?

[00:07:27] Jimmy Spikes: What we planned on doing is having an individual sign up for an account, say you, and you'll start off with the basic package. We do have a freemium, which just really, if you're honest about it, it's just for testing. You can see how it works, it's not going to give you a lot of space. But our first tier is ten dollars for one terabyte, the second tier is two terabytes for $15.95. And I don't know anybody that'll fill up a terabyte personally, but it's ten to fifteen dollars a month. And then once you pass on, what we'll do is just, whoever keeps the Beternal on Beternal site, will just get a maintenance, a yearly maintenance charge for that site.

[00:08:13] And that way, because if you, if you upload it to a data stick or whatever, you take the chance of losing it. Here, it's safe and it'll be maintained. I mean, that's the whole goal of this is to build the constant supply of wealth and knowledge that, until today, just gets deleted when it's done.

[00:08:37] Ed Watters: So Jimmy, let's talk a little bit about the legal implications. What, what legal implications are tied? Because, obviously, there's an asset and anytime there's an asset there's legal bindings to that asset. So what does the attorney say about [00:09:00] transferring this type of asset?

[00:09:03] Jimmy Spikes: The same thing that falls under an email. If I email you secret documents on how to build the world's best banana cream pie, that's what I sent to you. It doesn't have anything to do with anybody else. That's, there's nobody that can do anything about that. So we, we fall under the same category of distribution as an email company.

[00:09:31] Ed Watters: Yeah, that, that's very unique. And, and actually I, I believe that's beneficial also in many ways to this sort of a system.

[00:09:42] Jimmy Spikes: Now if you send illegal, illicit stuff and we get word of it, then we're going to have issues. But at the end of the day, I can't control what you put on there. And that's where social media these days really has gotten out of hand, in my opinion. They literally want to control you and what you put on there and the sad part is, is that changes day to day. One day they don't like green shirts, so you're banned. The next minute, they don't like red shirts, so you're banned. And that's ridiculous. When you're talking about a decade or more of your stuff saved on this platform that can be deleted because you're wearing the wrong shirt, this is ridiculous.

[00:10:30] Ed Watters: Yep, yeah. That, that was actually going to be one of my questions. So you just answered it for us. You know, a lot of people get these discouraging messages from social media nowadays because of that flip flop attitude. And nobody takes a stand on what their policy is, and it's not going to change, this is what we believe. And, and when we let our, you know, morals flip flop like that, it can be pretty discouraging for sure. So is this in full launch yet? When do you plan on launching it and how can people get involved with that?

[00:11:24] Jimmy Spikes: Right now we have a landing page and the full launch should be the middle part of next month. We're going to go over it right now, I'm testing it. Me and the developer are going over the testing aspects, finalizing the legacy distribution aspects. And we also, after we launch, hopefully within the first month, we'll have our really first big update. Which is going to be something that's going to be bigger than what we're launching today, in my opinion. So that'll be a promising thing for all the people that get up, get it, get in on it up front. Because one, you're going to get a better price [00:12:00] and two, you're going to get access to the newest technology that'll be out there.

[00:12:08] Ed Watters: Interesting. So that, that means you've got development still coming. And do you plan on adding more features besides this initial launch and the first upgrade?

[00:12:29] Jimmy Spikes: To be honest with you, my goal is to get anybody over the age of sixty-five on this platform as soon as possible. Because there's the people that are obviously leaving the earth the fastest. And if I make this too complicated, that will discourage more people. I mean, every time I get onto Facebook and they did an upgrade, I'm like, What do I do? You know, I'm fifty. I'm like, I don't even know what to do.

[00:13:00] Ed Watters: Yeah. Yeah, I understand that full well. I'm, I'm up there. You know, we, we watched the rise of this internet and how it's changed over the years is just incredible. So it is very unique what you've been doing. Uh, do you have a call to action for our listeners today, Jimmy?

[00:13:25] Jimmy Spikes: We sure do. Um, just go to the landing page at www.beternal.life. Put the name of this wonderful podcast in the section that says where did you hear about us? And we'll give you three months off your first year of service.

[00:13:48] Ed Watters: That's wonderful. Uh, that, that sounds like a good deal. You know, it's, it's unique when a service like this comes about because of that cataloging of memories. Like you said, people are getting aged and I can tell you from losing my parents, my grandparents, my uncles, my aunts, my brothers, you know, all of these people that meant the world to me,

[00:14:19] it would be nice to have something to fall back on once in a while. Just to re spark and rekindle those memories of the gold panning that we did, the hiking, the camping, all of these beautiful, wonderful memories. Because, face it people, when we store it ourselves, it's not a redundant backup and it gets lost, or damaged, or destroyed. And with this service, it's a great way to keep those things kindled, especially those memories. Because that's [00:15:00] what life truly falls under is memories and they're treasured. So Jimmy, how can people actually reach out to you and contact you?

[00:15:16] Jimmy Spikes: Uh, my email is jimmy@beternal.life if anybody wants, has any questions or anything like that. But I did want to touch on something that you just brought up real quick, if you don't mind. Um, you know, when my mom passed and I was looking for that, for that spark, we live in a society, and me and you are probably around the same age,

[00:15:46] you know, the coolest thing I remember doing as a child was going to somebody else's house and looking through a photo album of all the adventures that they did. Or even my own family. We've grown up in a generation now that basically has never saved anything. Kids get cell phones. They throw away their cell phones,

[00:16:12] they lose all of their memories. Parents change cell phones, they've lost all their memories. They put them on Facebook, facebook deletes them after so many years. So we legitimately have not saved a whole entire generation's, just memories, much less knowledge. I mean, we don't write books anymore, we don't, we don't do anything. And I would give everything that I've got today to have something from my mom to me that was personal and I don't have anything.

[00:16:52] Ed Watters: Yeah. And you know, I'm right now, as we speak, fifty-eight. And living fifty-eight years and seeing so much loss, that, that really fuels that desire to catalog and, you know, curate those memories for, and that's why I podcast, you know, it's those memories. And that brings up another thing before we go, Jimmy, do we have the space to audio on your platform also?

[00:17:37] Jimmy Spikes: Oh, yeah. I mean, we're offering you every form of media. If you don't want to get face to face, at least I can tell you that I love you. At least I can leave you a private message. Because my niece has one of the last recordings of my mom, where my mom called her and left a message. And for some [00:18:00] reason, Devin saved it and she sent it to me. And that's the only time that I have anything of my mother where I can hear her voice. And that, you know, even her voice resonates with me as far as good feelings, funny feelings, bad feelings. It brings out emotions that we as humans need to have.

[00:18:24] Ed Watters: That's right. You know, and, and speaking of that, I recently lost my oldest brother last year, about a year ago. And the day before he died, he left me a voice message and all it says is, I love you, brother. And, you know, sometimes I go back and just think, Well, you know, that reminds me that my brother was thinking about me on his final moments, and I missed the call. But I got the voice message and I'll have that forever. So it is unique.

[00:19:14] Jimmy Spikes: And that's the key to Beternal, it's active. Once we get into the application aspect, you're going to be able to go on your phone at any second and record a message and it'll do what it needs to do. You know, and I think of the, the future of Beternal and, you'll like this, do you remember in Superman when he goes to his little cave and he grabs the crystal and he puts it in that thing and his dad pops up? I mean, that's AI technology with holograph.

[00:19:48] We have both of those things working today. So if you add enough information into an AI program and you have a hologram of say your brother or your mother, a 3D picture that they could build a hologram, you could legitimately, if you had enough information to help that AI, know how they think and move, you could have a conversation, a realistic conversation with your deceased loved one.

[00:20:20] Ed Watters: That's coming, I guarantee that's coming soon.

[00:20:25] Jimmy Spikes: And that's where we need your information saved in order to process that.

[00:20:33] Ed Watters: Yeah, unique. That's for sure. You heard it here on the Dead America Podcast, it's exciting and great technology to have around. And I'm excited for you, I hope it goes a long ways and we're sure going to spread the word here. Thank you for being part of the Dead America Podcast today, Jimmy.

[00:20:57] Jimmy Spikes: I appreciate the opportunity. And like I [00:21:00] said, for all your listeners, sign up on the place that says where did you hear about us? Dead America and, uh, you'll get three months off your first year because we're excited to be able to help you pass on what really matters to your family and your future.

[00:21:18] Ed Watters: Thank you for joining us today. If you found this podcast enlightening, entertaining, educational in any way, please share, like, subscribe, and join us right back here next week for another great episode of Dead America Podcast. I'm Ed Watters, your host, enjoy your afternoon wherever you may be.