IDEA 20090222 Deadbook

What happens to dead people when they are on a Social Network Service? Aren't connections to dead people just as important as the living?

I've had two people I know die in the last couple of days: Mary Simon, a girl who I grew up with. And then, a business friend, Brandt Cannici. I started thinking about how all these people connect and how to connect people from the past into current social networking.

I had a conversation with my friend David Strauss about the tech to use:

(01:15:45) david@fourkitchens.com: (1) Privacy. SMW doesn't have any concept of personal information or information restriction, especially disclosure based on relationships. (01:16:28) david@fourkitchens.com: (2) Individuality. Wikis, like SMW, are based on community collaboration to gain consensus. Social networks are about being *you* in a unique and identifiable way. (01:18:01) david@fourkitchens.com: (3) Authority. Only I should have the ability to say who's my friend/partner/etc. Wikis, including SMW, aren't based on this sort of strict point of view. I guess this is sort of #2 in a different light. (01:18:32) david@fourkitchens.com: (4) Media integration. SMW does not integrate with other services well. (01:19:57) david@fourkitchens.com: (5) Temporality. Social networking is about the here and now. WIkis exist in the "wiki now," a kind of continual refinement and currency. Wikis can provide an edit history, but that's semantically different from what's changing about my life when. (01:21:25) rejon: its a social network for dead people though (01:21:31) david@fourkitchens.com: oh (01:21:33) rejon: hahaha (01:21:40) david@fourkitchens.com: lol (01:21:40) rejon: like ancestry (01:22:08) rejon: copy and paste that one in the awesome online conversation page (01:22:10) david@fourkitchens.com: That's a perfectly reasonable use for SMW (01:22:14) rejon: hahahaha