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How our sites are used when we die

Posted by: Stephen Baker on January 23

Early Sunday morning in New York’s East Village, an allegedly drunk driver ran over and killed a 25-year-old student named Hannah Engle. Sadly, that’s not a new story, or a remarkable one. But unlike most hit-and-run victims in the past, Engle had a site on Friendster.

This became a source for news coverage. The New York Post quoted testimonials from her friends. And after the Post came out this morning, I’m told, traffic at her site was virtually paralysed by hordes of digital rubberneckers.

The lesson here is that with every word we post, we’re writing our own obituaries. Our blogs and social networking sites, so full of the jokes and banter of our lives, quickly become at our death the closest thing most of us will have to a shrine.

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Reader Comments

Henrique Plöger Abreu

January 24, 2006 07:51 AM

Dear Stephen,

Dead will catch " sooner or later " everyone of us, but, still it remains one of our biggest “tabus”, at least to be honest, it is a theme that I do not often think about. In my country ( Portugal ) there is a saying, stating that, there are 3 tasks that every man / women should perform during his life, to raise a child, plant a tree and write a book. I did not had the chance yet to do the ladder, so, probably my blog is the closest , to that , and, will remain , for the good and the bad, my legacy, ( For the ones that are not close to me like family and friends ), if suddenly ................
Someone said, that we should live every day as if it would be the last one of our lives, …. food for thought..................


I would like to congratulate You and Heather for putting together a great column at BW.

Kind regards

Henrique Plöger Abreu

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In Blogspotting Senior Writer Stephen Baker and Associate Editor Heather Green take a look at how cutting-edge technologies are changing business and society. Whether its blogs or wikis, data crunching or data targeting, technology’s advances are reshaping the world that we live in.

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