

The rise of the dead: How many ghosts are on Facebook? - jonathanbgood
http://1000memories.com/blog/22-the-rise-of-the-dead-how-many-ghosts-are-on-facebook

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southpolesteve
The guys at www.entrustet.com have been talking about this for the last 6
months. Some of 1000 memories points are straight up lifted. Have some
integrity guys. The interwebs know when you copy.

Stats are free, but you should at least credit them for inspiration.

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smackfu
Isn't the moral of Hacker News that the ideas don't matter that much, only the
execution?

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southpolesteve
Taking someones idea for a business and plagiarism are very different things

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docgnome
Reminded me of this XKCD <http://xkcd.com/686/> Which just made me sad.

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ubernostrum
A friend of mine died (young -- early 30s) this year. For a while, until his
computers were taken care of, he was still "online" through various IM
services, which was creepy.

A certain IRC network has also, apparently, made an exception to its policy on
expiring registered nicks -- nine months later, his is still registered and
protected. Which is a nice gesture.

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danshapiro
It would be fascinating to calculate when the dead on Facebook will outnumber
the living. Anyone able to interpolate based on the data provided + Facebook's
growth rate?

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alanh
If the number active (alive) Facebook users grows at a sufficient exponential
rate, e.g. each new generation has at least 2× the users of the last
generation, then the answer would be “never”

Edit: Um, humans _do_ grow in population in an exponential pattern… how long
do you think the population has been at 6.8 billion?

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tmorgan
Well, populations are typically modeled as a sigmoid function, they only
appear to be growing exponentially. I think it's fair to assume total
population will stabilise whilst we are still resource limited to Earth.

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jules
It seems that we are at the inflection point of the sigmoid:

[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/World-
Pop...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/World-
Population-1800-2100.png)

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j_baker
The last estimate I seem to find on the subject said that the population
should level off at 10 billion in _2200_. Granted, this is from 1999:
[http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/sixbillion/six...](http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/sixbillion/sixbilpart1.pdf)

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adrianwaj
I recently came across some YT channels of high-altitude climbers who'd
deceased in their endeavors, with their last videos remaining.

<http://www.youtube.com/user/karlunterkircher>
<http://www.youtube.com/user/FredrikEricsson>
<http://vimeo.com/joepuryear/videos>

Creepy. There'd be an opportunity for digital wills, so a next of kin can
claim passwords for ghosted accounts. Maybe some type of program that various
sites can adopt, and users just register their account names with the
program's hub site.

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southpolesteve
check out some friends of mine at www.entrustet.com

They are doing exactly what you describe

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jluxenberg
Had never heard of 1000memories. Interesting idea, but how can they really
promise to be around "forever?" Does anyone know how they plan to make money
on their "free" service?

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cosmicray
This seems like a (morbid) opportunity. An AI to keep these people posting on
each other walls.

I'm reminded of a short story by Larry Niven...
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Defenseless_Dead>

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jaaron
The Facebook wall for one of my passed away friends is regularly populated
with notes and shared memories by those who knew him.

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purp
Same here. I got two FB firsts this year: first death of a friend I learned of
via FB (I've had another since), and first "update" from a dead friend who's
mother now controls his account.

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larrywright
I have a friend who passed away earlier this year. I found out on Facebook, as
there was a sudden influx of people commenting on his wall about his passing.

8 months later, the account is still active. Facebook will occasionally tell
me that I should reconnect with him, which frankly is a bit creepy.

The worst part, however, is that his mom still posts messages on his wall as
if he can read them. I find this equal parts creepy and sad.

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brc
I know of at least one, and it's annoying when Facebook does that 'hey, you
haven't talked to this person in a while, write them a message' thing. There
needs to be a way for the deceased to have accounts either deactivated or
taken out of regular circulation.

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aquadoctorbob
<http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=deceased>

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kul
Do they really have to be called 'ghosts'?

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topbanana
Yes, sorry.

