I have been thinking about this post for awhile...
As I've written about before, it's now been a little more than a month since a good friend of mine passed away. In the wake of everything else he left behind there is his blog, his Facebook Page, his LinkedIn account, etc...I keep seeing his name pop up whether it be on my Treo or here on my own blog and I am beginning to wonder how long that 'presence' stays? What is appropriate? Is there 'standards' being created?
A few years ago I had another friend take his own life and for a long time I left his contact info in my Outlook and on my phone. After a while I deleted it and that was not as easy as pushing a 'button'.
In 2001 my father passed away and he had a website for one of his businesses. I remember at one point he had a picture from my wedding on it and my wife was none to thrilled about it (amazing how far we've come with Internet comfort ability) but a few months after his death the site was down, I assume because no one paid his hosting bills and such that his site was taken down.
That leads me to today. With blogs and social networking sites there is no 'maintenance' fees per se, so do these things stay up in perpetuity and is that a bad thing? One things I am thinking about is how do we per serve all of these individual acrchivable items? Is there a way to turn a blog into a real life, nicely packaged journal? I would think so.
So, just some random thoughts I guess...
2 comments:
what I found interesting was that Jon's Facebook page stays active - because of the way Facebook as been spamming, things...but I found it interesting...
These are some of the things we have talked about at various conferences. Even if someone's page is taken down they have a presence in the form of comments and interactions at other sites...it is truly a living history of the "average person." I have heard Josh Hallet compare it to letters that were written in the past and preserved as history of the period. I think that is a great comparison.
As I often point to - this new world also gives us the opportunity to understand people.
People never "go away." They live in the memories of others as well as the affects they made on the world. Social media just makes that "footprint" more visible and allows the memories to stay fresh...and our loved ones to stay with us in spirit. A way to say hi - when you need to say hi!
For a long time after Dad died, I used to visit his online Photo album, which finally came down when Ofoto became Kodak Gallery. And I still have a few of his emails from a day or two before he died saved in my Yahoo account.
And, of course, I'm still on his company's email newsletter list. I keep thinking I'll ask them to take me off and then I put it off again. Maybe it's not good that this stuff is around in perpetuity - does it keep us from moving on?
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