A digital obituary

Following the death of Tony Hart recently there has been a lot of condolences and remembering going on in the media and online. An outpouring of grief probably isn’t the right phrase, but a fond remembering is probably better. He obviously touched a lot of people’s lives.

The Guardian’s coverage - a selection of videos from Youtube and setting up a flickr photo gallery - got me thinking about obituaries in the digital age and how people will start to remember you when you’re gone.

People leave their foot print everywhere online, in increasingly media-rich ways. Tony Hart has benefited from a (crudely executed) video obituary because he was on TV.

However, as more and more people create content in various places, they are leaving more evidence of their history and contribution to the digital world every day. In the future, as platform convergance becomes the norm and your content is gathered together into one place it will be easier for people to see your personality – your life – in just one place.

There may even be a move for people to rewrite history, by editing their life online before their death, so that they can have the obiturary they want.

But – how static is this content? What happens when someone presses delete?