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| Everlasting life, The New Killer App |
March 9, 2004 |
By Don Tapscott
Over the centuries we've seen the inexorable march of new media, with innovations such as the bound book, moveable type, telegraph, telephone, radio, TV and Internet. But one communications tool has remained virtually unchanged for eons: the tombstone. Take a slab of granite, chisel in a name, birth and expiration dates, and you’re pretty much done.This topic came up at a particularly exuberant dinner party about a decade ago. I proposed, in vino veritus fashion, that in keeping with today’s digital era we should start thinking of digital life after death, something my dining colleagues immediately dubbed “perpetual presence.” Your parents would sign you up with Perpetual Presence Inc. at birth, and throughout your life you would send this company audio and video clips, your views on major events, diary entries and so on. Once you died, your Web site would come to life, and friends and descendants could visit you from anywhere in the world. They would interact with a close approximation of you — even though you had passed away. And we’re not talking just simple Web graphics, but a lifelike animation of you that would do Terminator 3 or Lord of the Rings proud — perhaps even in holographic form, one that could interact with anyone interested.But what seemed like a crazy idea back then is now showing signs of life. Big changes are afoot in the funeral business; death is being digitized.
Recently a company introduced a multimedia tombstone with video displays and speakers that leap to life when someone approaches. The tombstone has an interactive touch screen, just like an ATM, so you can choose to see particular vignettes from the deceased’s life. I imagine visiting my grandmother’s grave. “Hello Don. Good to see you. Why aren’t you wearing a sweater in this weather?” I find the notion of talking tombstones unsettling. I prefer to talk to a grave rather than have it talk to me, and I suspect most people feel the same way. My guess is that such tombstones will remain a niche product, particularly since they’re quite expensive.GAUDY TO GRACEFUL But another form of digital life after death that’s deservedly gaining popularity is Web site memorials. The friends and family of the deceased build multimedia Web sites to celebrate their loved one’s life. So far, most deal with famous personalities, and they’re all over the map in terms of tone and sense of dignity.If you want to see the garish, go to http://www.elvis.com.
It is Elvis Presley’s official Web site, “home of the undisputed King of Rock ‘n’ Roll and his beloved Graceland Mansion in Memphis, Tennessee!“Whether you’re a long-time Elvis fan or new to the magic of Elvis, and no matter where you call home, we’ve assembled a stunning array of interactive features designed to bring Elvis to you in new and exciting ways,” the site explains. “Lots of little-known facts and fabulous photos, up-to-date news including the latest in the world of Elvis and Graceland, streaming video and audio, plus panoramic views of Graceland and its brand new exhibits.”You can send an animated Elvis online postcard, where you choose the outfit Elvis wears while he utters some memorable phrase on the importance of family or the meaning of love excerpted from one of his movies.At the other end of the spectrum, visit http://www.terryfoxrun.org, home of the Terry Fox Foundation. It shares some of the same goals as Elvis’s site, such as celebrating the deceased’s memory and making money, but not surprisingly it does this in a dignified and restrained manner.
ONLINE LOVED ONES
Elvis and Terry died before the Web’s arrival, so neither had a hand in their online memorial’s design. But for the rest of us, planning for such memorials will soon demand our fullest attention.
Funeral companies are starting to offer memorial Web sites as part of their standard array of services.In the near future such sites will become de rigueur, and if you don’t make financial and editorial arrangements for your memorial site, you will be posthumously chastised for being insensitive to friends and family. So, in addition to selecting your estate’s executor, you’ll have the challenge of picking your memorial webmaster. This is a much more nuanced decision, since you’ll want to be confident that the person will manage your site in the way you would have wanted. Each of us will struggle with this issue just as queens and prime ministers today fret over whom to choose to paint their official portrait.
The best part is that your perpetual presence will stay up-to-date. So, if you are politically opinionated, you could buy the memorial current-events software. If you die this summer and George W. Bush loses the November election, your Web site could happily trumpet: “See? Didn’t I tell you Iraq would make him a one-term president just like his dad?” I view these developments as very egalitarian. The desire to leave a legacy (other than our children) is something most of us share but it’s a goal few achieve. If you’re wealthy you can set up a foundation to fund projects promoting your ideals. If you’re a particularly successful public figure you might have an airport or a school named after you. But for most of us, until now, the legacy cupboard was bare. Courtesy of the Internet, we will soon have personal torches that could burn brightly forever.
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