I have two friends, Paul and Richard. They only know each other through me. What happens to that social connection when I die?

Normally all the social connections created through me after I die may slowly decay. As Richard and Paul die, only the physical artifacts (the photos, letters, etc.) remain. 100 years from now, their relationship to me and each other may be more dead and forgotten than I am.

The creation of a social reef.

Richard and Paul are both “friends” of mine on Facebook. When I die, my digital social skeleton (my Facebook profile) will still connect them, as long as my profile is in place.

Digital social skeletons would create a social reef, a skeletal framework like the great coral reefs. Social reefs would be made of millions of social connections devoid of the life that created them. The questions is whether or not the new online skeletons will decay over time, or whether they will become a foundation for a larger social reef to form on top of them.

All I can imagine are digital archeologists a hundred years from now, with super user access, spelunking into the caves of deceased social networks. Running data mining scripts that extract data and illuminate the past.

In the physical world, interactions between people are remembered. Sometimes the interaction leaves behind physical artifacts. Letters are frequently treasured objects – remembrances of love, loss, and revolution. Photos of people long gone often become family heirlooms.

That fact that interactions help form our self identity and our bonds to other people reminds us that people are social creatures. So it shouldn’t surprise us that online social media is consuming the Web. An online analogy of an offline biological imperative seems like a natural extension for humanity.

All this online social interaction leaves behind artifacts, too. Tweets, Facebook messages, photos, videos and comment streams of all sorts.

So do these interactions belong to their creators or all the participants? If you are in your friend’s photo, is it also part of your identity? I would venture to say “yes”. But this affirmation raises some serious questions about ownership and our ideas of assets.

If virtual assets are going to be archived and permanently associated with a person, what assets should go into storage? Every picture that you take? Every picture that you are tagged in? Every picture that you talk about with our friends?

Is it possible that the interaction is the asset and that all the participants are the owners?

It seems to me that the old model of creator and creation – owner and asset may become outmoded. I see a new model of interaction and participant. But it isn’t that easy. User agreements form the only legal framework available, and they often state that service is the owner of the interaction.

Would a service that captures and archives the interaction make sense? Are the interactions out of context valuable?

… along with the promise of a digital after life.

The concept of “digital death” and “digital afterlife” are just beginning to enter into the public consciousness. We see a constant stream of writers, academics, and entrepreneurs that are realizing the coming importance of digital death and afterlife.

What we know
Interacting and expressing yourself online produces copius amounts of personal data that create a digital identity.

And even though physical death is inevitable, the death of your digital identity is not. This identity will survive as long as it’s data lives on. But this raises lots of questions.

digitaldeath.eu

Some thoughtful people at http://www.digitaldeath.eu have joined us in our exploration of this new frontier. Head on over to their site. Their scholarly approach reads quickly and they have some videos that address the digital beyond.

The issue of digital death is getting common enough that we can now FAIL to answer the question.

http://failblog.org/2009/06/10/yahoo-answers-fail/

Two new articles popped up.

Death Often Brings Disputes Over Online Lives
by Yuki Noguchi

New services promise online life after death
by Mallory Simon

Humans seem to have a need for immortality. We also seem to have a need to understand where we came from. So here are two scenarios to help me frame a question:

Today

What would you give to know how your ancient ancestors lived? Where were they when the pyramids were built, at the birth of Jesus, during the dark ages, the Renaissance? What were their lives were like? What forces shaped their lives? How did they die? What was important to them?

2,000 year from now:

A far distant descendant wants to know what life was like for his ancestors living at the dawn of the digital age. His digital family tree shows him all his ancestors back to the mid 1900′s.  For any person in his tree he can see video, still images, writing, and conversations (and who knows what other forms of media) from that person’s entire life – birth to death. His oldest ancestor on record is a man named John Romano. Born in 1971, he witnessed the the cold war, fossil fuels, the beginning of the Net, and  global warming. He saw the birth of mobile technology, augmented reality, and ubiquitous computing.

The question is “do we want this?”

Is an archive of human history important to us or to others? Is this valuable? Do we want this? To me, this is the essential question at the center of the conversation about digital afterlife.

We’ve seen comments about our presentation at SXSW out on the Web. Thanks for all the great comments.

Companies are being born out of death by Lilly Rockwell at Statesman.com

Digital Immortals or Just Noise From the Dead? by Laura on the Dell community Web site

Outside the Frame: South by Southwest 2009 by Amanda Hirsch at PBS.org

Panel: Who Will Check My Email After I Die? by Lilly Rockwell at austin360.com

What happens to your content after you die? at SXTXSTATE

SXSW Wrap Up by Craig Rowe

Thanks to all the attendees at the SXSW festival who came out for our core conversation “Who Will Check My Email After I Die.” We had a great time and a great conversation.

We think it is a conversation that will be the center of a lot more attention in the years to come.We hope to host a panel next year where we have an archivist, archeologist/sociologist, a lawyer, and a person from the business community. Some representation from the social networks and from Google would be great too.

For me the highlight of the conversation was when we discussed products that allow you to release content (email, videos, photos) after you die. We were talking about other possible triggers that could release content. The birth of a child. Graduation. Marriage.

This idea blew my mind. The idea that you could start conversations and communicate with loved ones years after your death is a spectacular idea. @qthrul asked does “Afterlife = cron job?”

What were the things that made you go “hmmm”?

We’ve put together a guide to help you get your digital life in order in preparation for your death. It walks you through the general process that we recommend.

• List your assets
• Define your wishes
• Choose someone to execute your wishes
• And provide access and control to that person.

Download our digital-death-survival-guide, and get your life in order.

People often talk sadly about the last thing they said to or did with a loved one before they die. Petty arguments. Missed meetings. These regrets often follow the survivors for the rest of their lives.

Technology is now making it easier to send your loved ones messages that they receive after you die. The Great Goodbye specializes in sending photos, MP3s, videos, and email to your loved ones to comfort them as they mourn you death.

But the service doesn’t state that all your emails have to be love letters. You could reveal who really shot J.F.K or raise some hell one last time? Ahh. To know that you got in the last word.