I don't like the emphasis these companies place on "forever". To me, the tragic part about death on the internet is how confusing and muddled the event of death is. We leave behind aliases and loose ends in several different communities. We die in the middle of a rapidly accelerating digital life process.
Facebook et al. will have to develop serious policies of death eventually. Someday a third of their users will be dead-- someday the majority of Facebook users may be dead. I think there's space for a web service that lets you compose your last words on these platforms, to be delivered programmatically through APIs and other means in the event of your death. Last emails, submissions, status updates, etc. A "Goodbye World" script, so to speak. To depart deliberately, gracefully (or maybe, explosively!) from our many virtual lives.
It's an interesting thought how mourners may want to continually visit the webspace (Facebook page etc) of the deceased, while blocking it from the broader public. Perhaps people will start consciously creating 'dead-space' online to leave behind when they die. I imagine things like 2nd Life already encountered this (I recall a moving story about a terminally ill mother who left behind Harvest Moon presents for her kids, who didn't realize till later cause they'd stopped playing the game), but it could go even further. It could become a custom to create a sort of online world and fill it with things that are quintessentially you, and then after you die loved ones can access it (and maybe interact) as a memorial.
The eventual destination presumably being that your entire consciousness is uploaded into a computer on your physical expiration, and death no longer exists.
But that'll mean passing through that creepy uncanny valley period when they can build you a very convincing AI simulation of your mother, but it's definitely just a simulation.
That's a nice piece by the Merc -- glad they discovered you guys! Congrats Brett. It's just too bad so many journalists start by default with the "how this new thing is NOT Facebook" angle. I'm guilty of it myself, of course.
Facebook et al. will have to develop serious policies of death eventually. Someday a third of their users will be dead-- someday the majority of Facebook users may be dead. I think there's space for a web service that lets you compose your last words on these platforms, to be delivered programmatically through APIs and other means in the event of your death. Last emails, submissions, status updates, etc. A "Goodbye World" script, so to speak. To depart deliberately, gracefully (or maybe, explosively!) from our many virtual lives.