Roadside Facebook Memorials

There's nothing sadder than a roadside memorial. It reminds you not only of someone's tragic death but also of your own mortality. It could have been you on the way to the local grocery store when all of a sudden a drunk driver slams into you head on. But the other thing that has always disturbed me about roadside memorials is how they age. The friends and family of the deceased have gone to all the trouble of adding plastic flowers, cards and other memorabilia but nature has a way of aging these mementos. Who is responsible for eventually removing the disintegrated memories?

There was a kid my sister when to high school with who recently passed away suddenly and tragically. She told me how his Facebook wall became somewhat of a roadside memorial. I'm sure at first this kind of memorial provided some comfort to the young man's family. But what about five years from now? Won't it simply serve as a tarnished reminder of the son/friend/brother they once knew? Who is responsible for eventually updating or taking down his page?

Enter Legacy Locker, a new online service that allows people to securely store usernames, passwords and other access information for all their digital assets — from Facebook and MySpace accounts to Gmail and PayPal — and pass that information along to beneficiaries in the event of their death. “It’s the online equivalent of a safety deposit box,” said Jeremy Toeman, co-founder of Legacy Locker. Upon the death of a Legacy Locker member, family members simply call or email Legacy Locker and supply the death certificate, along with other verification criteria. Once that’s done, Legacy Locker sends the information onto the designated beneficiaries of the deceased.

While this in theory sounds like a good idea, who of Facebook's young demographic is thinking and planning for their inevitable demise? A bit ill conceived, don't you think? Plus, isn't this similar to a computer's cookies? Couldn't the family member of the deceased simply logon to the account provided that their computer's cookies have been enabled? But perhaps this service will appeal to Facebook's older, more mature demo although somehow I doubt it.