Frequently Asked Questions
Novella
Novella provides a unique way to learn about, experience, and remember your loved ones – not only through sharing life experiences, memories, and values, but through capturing your loved one via video to cherish with current and future generations.
Our “start” experience lets you ask a single loved one to respond to just one initial question via video. You can choose the question from our Idea Bank or write your own. Then, we’ll provide a link you can share with your loved one through text, email, or chat – which will allow them to record from any device!
After they record, we’ll send you a link where you can sign-in securely to view.
After the “Spotlight” (your loved one, or it can be yourself!), records their first video, you’ll need to create a Novella account and password to view the recording. The email used to create your account needs to be the same one you used during the initial start process (when you chose and sent the question).
After creating an account and logging in, you’ll be taken to a page that lists your “Communities” – one will be titled with the name of your Spotlight. The Community for your Spotlight can include others that will also watch recordings and ask questions, if you choose to invite others.
When you click to enter the Community, you’ll be able to watch video answers, ask additional questions, invite any other people (like family) to collaborate and ask questions themselves, comment on videos, like, and more!
We have you select just one person and one question to start, because it provides an introductory experience to using Novella. You can ask any number of additional questions later!
Additionally, you can have more than one Spotlight in any Community (such as for a couple). Please email team@meetnovella.com and we can assist you with this option.
During our “early adopter / beta” phase, Novella is FREE to try and use with your loved ones. Going forward, you will continue to have free access to any videos recorded through your use of Novella! We’d love to hear your feedback or any questions about this topic at team@meetnovella.com.
By trying and using Novella during this phase, you are not making any commitments to paid services of any kind.
Be assured that your Novella videos will only be viewed by those you provide access to. You can invite others to view videos inside of any specific Novella “Community”.
Using Novella doesn’t require any download, and can be used from any mobile device with a camera!
Our iOS/Apple mobile app is now available for download, which we recommend for those using iOS devices (both iPhone and iPad). Please download it here.
We don’t have an Android app just yet, but you can use Novella on Android or Desktop/Laptop computers by creating an account at app.novella.live/signup and following the instructions that will be sent to you via email!
Novella has a private and secure platform where we store and stream your video using end-to-end encryption. Through this secure, online platform we enable convenient, yet private sharing with your family.
After you sign in to Novella and enter a Community, you can invite others by using the “Members” tab.
You can use different devices to record Novella video – including any mobile device with a browser (Apple iOS, Android, smartphones, tablets).
Our iOS/Apple mobile app is now available for download, which we recommend for those using iOS devices (both iPhone and iPad). Please download it here.
Different devices will produce variations in quality, but we are happy to advise on which devices and settings are best to use. Please email team@meetnovella.com with any questions!
Both the Novella iOS App and Android devices (using web) will provide you with high-quality recordings. The quality of recordings on desktop or laptop computers will depend on the webcam used.
Yes! We support recording on desktop or laptop computers (PC, Mac) with an attached webcam.
Let us know if you need guidance or assistance at team@meetnovella.com.
While the default experience is between you and your Spotlight, here are some other ideas to experiment with!
- Choose to record about your own life. Share about your life as a gift to give others, and invite them to ask you questions!
- Create a community with your family named as the Spotlight instead of an individual, for example “Williams Family”. Everyone can contribute writing prompts or questions, and everyone can submit answers to be watched by others in the community. Try it during a family gathering and have everyone share their answer to the same question!
- Create a community and invite people with a shared experience, such as a Veteran’s group. Recording and sharing with others is a therapeutic and helpful process.
- Use a Novella community to honor the memory of someone who has already passed. Novella has been used for Celebration of Life events where people collectively record and share memories of a loved one.
Yes! It’s a great idea to gift Novella to someone in your life. Asking them to share about themselves conveys how much you care!
Please contact us at team@meetnovella.com for creative ways to gift Novella!
The Novella team has a combined 50+ years of experience developing software where privacy and security are critically important. Novella stores your videos privately and securely, and we stream your videos to you using end-to-end encryption.
Please email us at team@meetnovella.com, with the best way to contact you. We’ll reach out quickly to answer your questions!
We understand that the ability to keep and safeguard your videos is critical. If at any point you would like to export all of your videos from Novella to a different storage of your choice, we’re happy to help.
Please send us a request to team@meetnovella.com.
Novella videos don’t take up space on your mobile device or computer. Videos are streamed directly from our platform.
When recording video – the video is removed from your device as soon as the upload is completed.
When viewing video – the video is streamed directly from our private cloud service, and does not download or store on your device.