End of Digital Life after our Physical Life

In the future, we will invariably die two deaths: The first will be physical and the second, and potentially more noticeable death will be digital (Facebook memorializing, stagnant Twitter accounts, lost passwords). Just recently, Twitter established a policy to handle accounts after the death of a user. Family members and close friends can now petition for the removal of a loved one’s account, after filing the right paperwork.

According to the new policy page, requests must be sent to the site along with:

1. Your full name, contact information (including e-mail address), and your relationship to the deceased user.

2. The username of the Twitter account, or a link to the profile page of the Twitter account.

3. A link to a public obituary or news article

If the paperwork checks out, Twitter can opt to either delete a deceased user’s account, or create an archive of the user’s tweets for family members. Similarly, Facebook’s deceased user policy, which was put in place in October, includes an option to deactivate. Alternatively, the policy also offers to keep the account open as a digital memorial, meaning that the user’s profile is still visible (only) to friends, though all status updates and contact information have been removed.

Jeremy Toeman, who is the CEO and founder of Legacy Locker–a site that acts as a digital safe  for things like Web site log-ins, and messages to family members that can be accessed after a person dies–thinks Facebook’s relationship requirements just aren’t good enough. In a post on Legacy Locker’s company blog Toeman notes:

“This policy lacks the concept of desired intent. What if an individual wanted their Twitter stream archived (and not just by the Library of Congress)? What if another user wanted it wiped out (a challenge with any service, we acknowledge) completely? What about any situation wherein the desires of the user who dies are in conflict with those who support them, or a conflict within the surviving family members?”

Facebook will not just give your next-of-kin access.  They clearly state that it’s against their Privacy Policy to do so.   Furthermore, the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act prevents the disclosure of stored communications unless there is a court order.  This means litigation.

So, with these 2 lives, Physical and Digital, time has come when we would be required to have the formalities to end the digital life !!You never know, maybe we would soon have e-will (to pass the digital estates) like Adsense revenues, Followers, Subscribers and Fans to be transfered to someone, mentioned in the will.

Facebook launches Facebook Lite

Facebook goes on diet with its new version, the Facebook Lite. It is a simpler, lighter, cleaner, crispier and faster Facebook. This step by Facebook,  is seen as a milestone to take a leading edge in the sphere of real-time streaming web. The beta version is launched for specific regions like US and India, where the traffic of people joining this social networking site is heavy.

 Why Facebook Lite ?

• The main focus of the Lite version is writing on walls, sending messages, viewing and posting photos and videos, the crux of a social networking site.
• Facebook classic imbibes a whole set of versatile third-party applications making it richer and heavier whereas we find most of these applications missing in Lite, making it easier to load in a slower internet connection.
• Newer version is specifically targeted for the new users who might find the older version overwhelming with too much of information on a single page.

The changes in Facebook lite:

• The navigation and info buttons on the left of the page, highlights on the right is missing.
• There is no requests other than suggested friends and the friends request.
• The friends tab on the facebook tab is replaced by events tab that is meant for seeing and creating events.
• Another add-on is ‘View Top Stories’ instead of viewing all the post listed in order.
• Updates appear real-time along the bottom of the page, this is something worth experiencing.
• As mentioned earlier, most of the third-party applications are taken away and there is no tool bar and chat available in bottom as well.

This is considered as twitter-like site with no word count limit in posting a message and in comment. Also, a normal facebook page has a size of 778 KB while a page of facebook Lite weighs only 113 KB. Though this depends on the photos and videos a profile has.

A lot of users who enjoyed the various games and quizzes coupled with Facebook Classic might not be very enthusiastic about it.

Check out http://lite.facebook.com/ to have hands-on the newer Facebook and see if you are one of the beta testers!! Users who don’t have an access to Facebook Lite will be automatically linked to Facebook Classic.

This definitely is going to be a hit among folks who love speed. Who doesn’t?

Social Netwoking

In this era of globalisation and community building in the virtual space, it is the tools of social networking that comes as a much aided service. To know more about, as what it is, where it originated from and how it works just spend some time in reading between lines of this small informal, technical write-up in a lay man’s language.

It was as early as 1954, when the term social network was introduced by J.A Barnes. However the proper meaning of social networking can be best understood if one visits the multiple of sites that are hosted online. They can be popular ones such as MySpace to more common and frequented social networking sites such as Facebook in US, Australia and New Zealand. Do not forget to check on Orkut a very happening social networking site, quite in use with the people of Brazil and India.

If you visited it, you might have got a hang on social networking. Yes, social networking is all about building communities with like-minded individuals with some common interest. Thus this community on the internet, reads, shares discusses and even promote each other’s views for a better cause within the framework of their grouping with the larger world. It is this group that allows interacting for a common purpose towards various aspects. It helps in grouping of friends and with family members, sharing mutual views and thought provoking reviews.

A social networking site is created keeping in mind the basic requirement of an individual i.e. to SOCIALIZE. Man is a social animal, and in today’s hurricane pace of life, to stay connected with the near and dear ones, building opportunities through networking, promoting ideas, creating awareness, sharing a joke, being digitally connected and physically away is made possible through these various social networking sites. The interactive ways used in this virtual community are chats, messaging, voice chat, email, file sharing, group discussions and blogging.

The very first social networking site was classmates.com in 1995 aiming to tie up with the class friends. With its growth on the basis of trust and friends, it took a big leap around 2005 as a component of business internet strategy with Yahoo! 360 launched by Yahoo.

This is one of the most in-expensive ways to stay connected with the latest and the best not only about the people you know but also the people whom you want to know, meet digitally and share ideas in bytes and hertz.

The social networking has caught up in such a way that you can know more as the Social Networking Conference is scheduled to begin in the month of May at Tokyo, Japan to discuss the growth, development and various issues on this online community industry.

Check my blog frequently to be abreast with the latest updates.