Your Digital Afterlife: When Facebook, Flickr and Twitter Are You Estate, What's Your Legacy?

Almost without realizing it, we have shifted toward an all-digital culture. Future heirlooms like family photos, home movies, and personal letters now exist only in digital form, and in many cases they are stored using popular services like Flickr, YouTube, and Gmail. These digital possessions form a rich collection that chronicles our lives and connects us to each other.

But have you considered what will happen to your treasured digital possessions when you die?

Unfortunately the answer isn't as certain as we might presume. There are numerous legal, cultural, and technical issues that could prevent access to these assets, and if you don't take steps to make them available to your heirs, your digital legacy could be lost forever.

Written by the creators of TheDigitalBeyond.com, this book helps you secure your valuable digital assets for your loved ones and perhaps posterity. Whether you're the casual email user or the hyper-connected digital dweller, you'll come away with peace of mind knowing that your digital heirlooms won't be lost in the shuffle.

Since 2008, John Romano and Evan Carroll have researched and wrote about the budding digital afterlife community. They first presented their research to a crowded room at the South By Southwest conference (SXSW) in 2009, and were immediately mentioned on NPR's "All Tech Considered".
John and Evan then created The Digital Beyond--thedigitalbeyond.com--as a think tank for digital death and legacy issues. The site has grown into the go-to source for digital afterlife information. The New York Times, Obit magazine, Orlando Sentinel, and The Austin Chronicle have mentioned The Digital Beyond and have consulted John and Evan on related stories. In November 2009, they appeared on CNN in a featured video story, "Planning Your Digital Afterlife." They returned to SXSW in 2010 to host another session called "Become Immortal: Understanding the Digital Afterlife."