Web Graveyard Update

On April 9, 2009, in Personal, by Mahendra Palsule

I had recently mooted the concept of WebGraveyard.com, where your presence in the online world will forever be preserved, including your social networking profiles, blogs, etc.

If anyone is yet not convinced this is a great idea, check out Online-Funeral.

Online Funeral allows mourners to participate in the funeral ceremony via the Internet, and if their appointment book doesn’t have a free slot at that time, allows them to see the videos later, or even order CDs.

‘Virtual Tributes’ are nothing but a simple signing of a Guest Book. In contrast, our plan is to offer virtual memorials – full 3D replicas of what’s offered on Memorials.com.

Compared to our WebGraveyard.com, this is peanuts! There is no integration of the deceased person’s online life. In fact, Online Funeral just looks like a simple widget that we can add to WebGraveyard, no?

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Mahendra Palsule

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  • Anonymous

    Hi,

    I have been following your blog for a while and it is definitely entertaining. For the sake of my privacy and concern for those around me I am leaving behind an anonymous comment.

    I thought that Web Graveyard is a really good idea. As social networks etc. spread into common life, it would be worthwhile to let people know about ones demise.

    However, I have a totally opposing view of life which I will explain below. You can treat it as a feature request.

    I don’t flatter myself by thinking that people are actually going to care once I die (for a few days sure, but after a while – NO way). However, it would be important to inform them about it. So I would like a service which would send an email to everyone in my address book, send everyone an SMS from my phone, change my status on various social networks etc. and then eventually delete all the information and close all the accounts.

    At the moment, I have a list of accounts and passwords pinned to my will and instructions for my sister on how to do all this manually.

    I like in the Hindu way of cremating and not leaving behind anything. I don’t want to leave behind a digital footprint either.

    Anonymous

  • http://www.skepticgeek.com/geek Mahendra

    Dear Anonymous, thank you for your kind comments and feedback!

    Your feature request is not opposing at all really. My post was simply marketing lingo, but if such a site were to be developed, the features you request would be an integral part of Web Graveyard. We are already so concerned about our privacy in the digital world – what you’ve described simply extends the online privacy concept to what happens after we die.

    I very much like the way you’ve described it – not leaving behind a digital footprint. But I think there is more to it than appears at first glance. The Hindu way of cremation refers to the destruction of our physical existence, not the destruction of our creative work, our knowledge, and philosophy. While our digital lives may comprise of several online artifacts of our physical persona and personal affairs, they may also include creative and intellectual work in many arts and sciences. Are you sure you would like to destroy these as well?

    When I see how Indians are proud of their ancient philosophical wisdom and scientific knowledge in Sanskrit and the Vedas but are desperately clinging to a few fragments of the original manuscripts, I realize how important it would be for preserving what we have today in the digital world.

    It’s good that you have thought about all this and actually prepared for it. Few, very few people do so, especially those who are not yet of the ripe old age.

    Thanks for commenting and I hope you continue to enjoy this blog. I enjoyed your comment! :-)

  • http://www.headstonesandmemorials.com J T Stone

    This is just an ongoing testamony to how life and death has changed becasue of the internet.

    I know my life is forever changed.

  • http://www.quickwebproxy.com Richard

    Nice blog post, a good read, i’ll be bookmarking this.



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