Online life after death
I want to talk about what happens when you die. There are procedures for what happens to your body and worldly possessions. But what about the parts of you that live online? Facebook page, photos on Flickr, your avatar in some online game, or email. Those things are not you exactly but they’re not objects either. It’s a shadow of who you are in this semi-alive entity called the internet. What happens to this digital shadow when you die?
We’re sharing more and more of our lives online. But when it comes to death and online, we’re still trying to figure it out. Facebook relies on family or friends to notify the company when someone dies, otherwise they leave the page up. That’s led to weird moments where Facebook suggests you get back in touch with someone who you can’t get in touch with anymore.
Lisa Granberg sees a need and an opportunity. She started MyWebWill, essentially a way of putting your plan together for what happens to your digital self after you die. It’s a service that’s was tested in Sweden and is now in the U.S.
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