Deathswitch and Slightlymorbid.com

[Onyx]

Death leaves online lives in limbo (AP)

NEW YORK - When Jerald Spangenberg collapsed and died in the middle of a quest in an online game, his daughter embarked on a quest of her own: to let her father's gaming friends know that he hadn't just decided to desert them.

It wasn't easy, because she didn't have her father's "World of Warcraft" password and the game's publisher couldn't help her. Eventually, Melissa Allen Spangenberg reached her father's friends by asking around online for the "guild" he belonged to.

One of them, Chuck Pagoria in Morgantown, Ky., heard about Spangenberg's death three weeks later. Pagoria had put his absence down to an argument among the gamers that night.

"I figured he probably just needed some time to cool off," Pagoria said. "I was kind of extremely shocked and blown away when I heard the reason that he hadn't been back. Nobody had any way of finding this out."

With online social networks becoming ever more important in our lives, they're also becoming an important element in our deaths. Spangenberg, who died suddenly from an abdominal aneurysm at 57, was unprepared, but others are leaving detailed instructions. There's even a tiny industry that has sprung up to help people wrap up their online contacts after their deaths.

More here: http://tech.yahoo.com/news/ap/20090316/ap_...ec_death_online

https://slightlymorbid.com/

http://www.deathswitch.com/

[Rev.Reverence]

..I was waiting for that... what's next...online wakes?

[Scary Guy]

http://www.deadmansswitch.net (completely free service)

There was a free open source program called "Dead Mans Switch" that sat on your computer and did this but you had to have access to it. Since you can check webmail anywhere I guess this does make more sense. A neat feature is that it would sign into forums as well (although I've never really tried that).

..I was waiting for that... what's next...online wakes?

I'm sure it's been done already, probably in WOW, SL, or EQ.