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Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Digital legacy: The fate of your online soul

Digital legacy: The fate of your online soul - tech - 02 May 2011 - New Scientist: "We are the first people in history to create vast online records of our lives. How much of it will endure when we are gone?

NOT long before my wife died, she asked me to do something for her. 'Make sure people remember me,' she said. 'Not the way I am now. The way I was.' Having spent most of her life as an assertive, ambitious and beautiful woman, Kathryn didn't want people's memories to be dominated by her final year, in which the ravages of disease and continual chemotherapy had taken her spirit, vitality and looks.

To me, the internet seemed to offer an obvious way to fulfil Kathryn's wish - certainly more so than a dramatic headstone or funerary monument. So I built a memorial website to celebrate her life through carefully selected pictures and text. The decision was unorthodox at the time, and I suspect that some in our circle thought it tasteless."

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