How will the internet remember us when we die? This was something I was morosely pondering earlier in the week, and by a curious co-incidence, a post popped up on TechRadar a couple of days ago addressing more or less the same topic. All this yo-yo-ing of the financial markets must be forcing us to consider our own mortality, or something. Anyway, with all the personal stuff we're lobbing onto the web, how much of it will stay there when we're gone? Will snippets of our lives remain, to remind our children, and our children's children, of the fact that we had trouble spelling the word "separate" and that we were rubbish at holding a camcorder steady?
It came to mind because I suddenly remembered someone I once knew called Andy, who was tragically killed by a hit and run driver in Bethnal Green some three summers ago. He regularly kept a blog on LiveJournal, and when i went back to see if it was still there, it was, surprisingly. His friends or family seem to have got LiveJournal to give it "memorial" status – which isn't something I've seen elsewhere, but what could be a better – or certainly, more accurate – way of remembering someone than reading down a blog of their casually-written thoughts?
I think I prefer that to the massive range of online services that allow you to create a memorial to a loved one, supposedly for perpetuity: Gates Of Remembrace, Gone Too Soon and so on. These sites have been created as an internet graveyard where we can go to solemnly lay our virtual flowers, but a good few of them – for instance this one, picked at random – charge hard cash for the privilege, and of course it's only really guaranteed to stay online for as long as the person operating it is willing or able to renew the domain name and hosting plan.
But so many "Web 2.0" sites are free of charge - photo storage, blogs, personal sites, social networking sites etc – that it should, in theory, be possible to create something that'll live on for future generations. Free accounts with Wordpress, for example, apparently don't automatically get pruned after a certain number of months of inactivity. But is there any way of guaranteeing it? Technology has outpaced laws that were originally written to assure the orderly disposition of tangible assets – houses, antiques, cars, cash and so on. You could probably bequeath your digital assets to your family – but who's to know whether they'll tend to them any more lovingly than they would a gravestone in a churchyard?
Sorry, this is all a bit depressing. Interesting, though.
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This is a great article and I believe Warm Tribute Online Memorials (WarmTribute.com) is a relevant place to create an online memorial.
Where did you start your research of all the other available sites out there?
Posted by: Warm Tribute | Sunday, 09 November 2008 at 08:02 AM
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Posted by: clxurgobn pymhfqux | Friday, 27 February 2009 at 06:16 AM
I've contemplated this same issue as one of my friends recently passed away and their Facebook profile was turned into a living memorial. I wrote a blog about it, check it out - Social Media, Lifecasting, and Life After Death.
Posted by: Liberty | Friday, 13 March 2009 at 10:44 PM
I decided that a more proactive approach to this very real problem. Not only do many of us have blogs but a whole online existence. I therefore founded the Last Messages Club so that each of us can leave emails and attachments to be transmitted only after our deaths to our friends and loved ones. I have left messages about my bank accounts, insurance, social networking as well as more personal messages. Whilst I share the 'free on web 2.0' ideal we are charging a low fee to recoup the development costs and to ensure the club goes on for a very long time indeed.
www.lastmessagesclub.com
Posted by: Geoff Reiss | Friday, 27 March 2009 at 04:43 PM