Phil Montgomery used a free web service to set up a teleconference funeral for a cousin today, hoping to virtually reunite family and friends from across the country. His cousin lived in Sacremento; they both grew up in Colorado Springs. Montgomery now lives in Huntington Beach.

Rodney C. Wakeman, co-owner of Wakeman Funeral Home in Saginaw, says friends and families have responded positively to their recently added option of live or delayed webcasts. Wakeman offers either a private webcast at a non-public website, or links to the video on the main funeral home website. “So far,” he says, “everybody who has worked with this has gone by the way of a more public option.”

Other Saginaw-area directors aren’t so sure. Sam Leppert, owner and director of McIntyre Funeral Chapel in Saginaw says despite the proliferation of sites like YouTube, families don’t want funeral services “plastered all over the Internet.”

“Quite honestly, folks in Saginaw are not ready for that yet. Funerals are more traditional.”