Imagine leading a quality digital life for 50 more years. What will happen when you die? What will become of your online accounts? Your data? What do people pass on to their heirs? Can your survivors box up your digital life and archive it? Will the data be lost without people to tend it? Or […]
Matt Ludwig joins John Romano to Factilitate “Who Will Check My Email After I Die?”
Matt Ludwig has accepted our invitation to be the second facilitator at our session “Who Will Check My Email After I Die?” We are excited that Matt will be joining us at SXSW and look forward to his persepctive.
Are you still alive? Part Three
You probably remember my previous posts about Dead Man’s Switch and the e-mails I’ve received from the service. Here’s a follow-up to the last e-mail. Subject: Dead Man’s Switch is REALLY worried about you Hi, Are you okay? You haven’t answered our last two emails. If you don’t answer this, your emails will be sent […]
The Business of Digital Death
There has always been money to be made selling the afterlife, and the digital afterlife will be no different. In the near future a host of businesses will spring to life to help us deal with virtual bliss. But what will they offer? The digital mausoleum. A place where people can go online to see […]
Selling digital salvation
Man has been struggling with death since the beginning of consciousness, and while we aren’t any closer to answering the big question, we are getting closer to a solution. There will come a time when super computers (or the average wrist watch) will be able to trace and store the patterns of thought. While some […]
Are you still alive? Part Two
You probably remember my previous posts about Dead Man’s Switch and the e-mails I’ve received from the service. Here’s a follow-up to the last e-mail. It seems that I didn’t successfully confirm my continued existence, so here’s my next notification: Subject: Dead Man’s Switch is worried about you Message: Hey there, where have you been? […]
Are you still alive?
A while back I posted about www.deadmansswitch.net. Here’s the first e-mail they sent me to confirm that I’m still alive. I like how it’s doesn’t assume that I’m alive, but I was hoping that it would be something more formal. In either case it’s still kind of disturbing. Hello you, this is your plain old […]
Who Will Check My Email After I Die chosen as a Core Conversation at SXSW
Evan and I (John) got the word today that we are invited to facilitate a “Core Conversation” at the SXSW Interactive Festival. The event is titled “Who Will Check My Email After I Die.” We are thrilled to be heading down there and look forward to a great event.
Dead Man’s Switch
When the gang here at Capstrat set out to brainstorm some ideas for SXSW 2009, we talked about what “digital will” service might look like. We decided that the basic model would allow a user to write e-mail messages and they would be sent on their behalf posthumously. The user would be prompted to check […]
Social Networking Post Mortem
I set out to investigate what might happen to my online identity if I were to pass away. Here’s what a few online services say about the deceased in their terms of service. Facebook “When we are notified that a user has died, we will generally, but are not obligated to, keep the user’s account […]