To those of you who just read Georgie Binks article titled “The Big Log Off” in The Walrus, we welcome you and encourage you to read through the archive of posts already on here.

We plan on starting a series of posts as one of our authors proceeds with documenting his online life so that it will be handled properly if and when he is gone.  This series will detail the steps he goes through for various types of online information, his method of documenting all of this and how he stores it for future use.

As we noted over a year ago in “Issues: Transfer of Personal Online Accounts to Third Parties“, what happens to your account after your death depends on the stated policies of that website. This morning on Skype Journal, Phil Wolff wrote the following:

MySpace says your account dies with you. They mean your login information and all the data you created and used. This includes your buddy list, avatars, history logs, text chat archives, etc.

This is very important when applied to accounts that are for groups, bands, etc.:

That’s immensely useful information, rich in hard won social capital. People use IM to organize their churches, school projects, political clubs, work teams; their real world and online lives.

It becomes necessary to find a website that will allow for transfer of login rights and information to other individuals. In this case, it is much easier to register your own domain, setup the hosting of the site, and then document all of this information so that someone else in the organization can continue the foundation you created without having to build from scratch.

Read Phil’s full comments contained in the article, “Your MySpaceIM account dies when you do“.

The Internet is a unique form of communication because it allows us to become penpals with virtually anyone in the world.  However, due to its disjointed nature, the passing of someone can be just as painful as your close family, but the ability for closure is sometimes denied to us.  Since a person can develop relationships online that, in many cases, are unknown to their own family, the family is then unaware of how close online bonds are and how those bonds are severed completely, often without any further word of what has happened to their online friend.

If anything, read this story and understand just how important it is to be ready before you are gone.

Several bloggers just posted a few days ago contemplating what would happen to their blog/site if they should pass away.  Many had the idea that there should be a way of archiving information for the future.  As pointed out in one post, what format would best serve to carry on into the future?  We don’t know what may happen with Internet 2.0 (not Web 2.0, but the next version/replacement of the Internet) and whether or not our material will carry over.

If any of you saw Johnny Mnemonic, you saw a potential future of the Internet that was really cool, but have you ever thought that maybe files/sites as we know them today will no longer exist in their current format? Imagine being a digital archaeologist in the future trying to extract data from a PDF when the format has been dead for several decades.  Imagine right now trying to get some data off an old 8″ floppy disk and you’ll have a pretty good idea of just how difficult it might be.

Thus, the question is, just how much of what you maintain as digital work should be extracted into other forms of media?  Do you have a huge photo library on Picasa or Flickr?  Maybe you need to print some photo albums just in case (and these sites have been known to lose/delete files on occasion).  Do you have a large journal or blog?  Maybe you need to export it to your word processor, clean it up, and print it (preferrably something other than just some paper you have lying around… like lulu.com, maybe?).

Or, better yet, let’s all keep an eye out for a trustworthy archive service that will allow you to do what you already do, but know that your data is backed up regularly in another location so that it is recoverable and preserved.  However, get ready to pay through the nose too… after all, once you are gone, who keeps up the payments for the backup?

(Here’s a thought, why not allow for those who wish the site to continue to make donations for the preservation of the site like museums do?  Hmmm.)

About five years ago, I got into the Dune series by Frank Herbert and loved them.  They were so off the wall and original and you never knew the direction that the next book would take the story.  I was really digging the books and looking online to find out when the next book would be coming out to enjoy.  That’s when I found out that Frank Herbert had already passed away and almost all of his plans for the series went with him.  Wow… I felt a little bit upset because the story was left unfinished. 

I went on to other books and finally came across another series I really got into, the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan.  The author had slated for 12 books in the full series and the 11^th book was published just last year.  I had mentioned to a friend of mine on Saturday that the author was so close to finishing the series.  I had hoped for a long time that the same thing would not occur as had happened with the Dune series.  I knew I was depending on this one person to be around long enough to bring closure to the series I had read over the last few years.

Alas, once again, my own hopes were derailed by life and reality.  Robert Jordan passed away yesterday.  It is hoped that he left behind enough notes (which he often recorded on a voice recorder and were dictated by assistants) that someone could step in and finish the last book.

What are you going to leave unfinished?

In Yahoo!’s Finance News, there is an article titled “What to Do After You Die” which discusses preparations for bill payment (and related contact information), insurance information, legal documents and so on.  An excellent article that shows the public is getting more concerned with preparing for someone’s passing.  Now if they can get just as concerned about online information and documentation as well.  Note that this article mentions the safe deposit box and we’ve already noted before about the danger of using such security in California (I wonder how soon other states follow their example).

(Via Consumerist.com)

Deathswitch.com, brought to you by Information Immortality, LLC., is a site to manage your final message to your family and friends.  This website is a specific implementation of the advice mentioned in our post on “Sharing your Obituary after your death“.  From the website:

A deathswitch is an automated system that prompts you for your password on a regular schedule to make sure you are still alive.

This used to be a common practice by employees who sneak code into an application to make it fail when they are no longer employed at the company to prevent the “deathswitch” from executing.   In this situation, the use of this system is put to a positive use.  Please keep in mind that this service charges an annual fee to maintain this list.

In an article in the San Francisco Chronicle titled “Anguished tales of property taken by state“, stories are told including one where a woman’s safety deposit box was declared abandoned though the owner had not been contacted by the bank to determine if it was still active (which it was). The State of California seized ownership of the contents. Considering what we’ve noted before about safe locations to place the documentation of your online life, it would seem that safety deposit boxes are no longer “safe”.

There is a link at the bottom of the article to help you determine if the state is holding any forgotten assets belonging to you.

(via Consumerist.com)

In an article on WikiHow titled “How to Share your Obituary with Your Online Friends“, there is an excellent summary of how to do this by identifying the responsible person to send the obit, the recipients, and what to share along with additional suggestions.

Oh, and please review the list of related WikiHows at the bottom of the article for more material similar to what you’ll find here.

(via Lifehacker.com)

From the Clipperz.com website:

• Store and manage your passwords and online credentials.
• Log in to your web services without entering any username or password.
• Protect any other sensitive textual information: confidential notes, codes for burglar alarms, software serial numbers, PINs and credit card details, …
• (Coming soon) Share secrets with family members and associates.

We here at BeforeYouAreGone.com are definitely excited by that last option coming soon. After all, the main purpose of this blog is to get you to prepare your friends or associates for your eminent demise and being able to share information with them in a secure manner is very much a necessity for any tool we review and/or recommend. (more…)