Life is brief, but e-mail is forever: Who takes over your online presence when you go?

by Ron Daly 

I don't need no aggravation
when the train has left the station
if you're there or not, I may not even know

Have a round and remember
things I did that ain't so tender. 
Let the train blow the whistle when I go. 

That song is an old one. It goes back to a time when dying was as simple as getting shot in while rustling cattle, and the biggest request you had upon death was "O, bury me not on the lone praerie." 

Nowadays, it's all about who handles your will, who inherits your belongings...and who's going to keep your long-standing Twitter legacy going. 

As online users get more and more dependent on the web to manage their information and run their lives, a grim eye moves to the future. Sure, older folks who are going off into that gentle night aren't using the web with the frequency of the generations that they sired. But nobody here is getting younger, and the question stands: who will take over your online accounts when you check out?

One solution, according to the Wall Street Journal, is the virtual safe deposit box (click here to read). Once you are proven dead, your "e-xecutor" will be given the login information of your online accounts. From there, they can take on your accounts and manage further payments in your name, close accounts, etc. 

DigitalMailer is working on its own version of this, which will allow you to keep digital copies of your deposit box contents inside your customer communication center account. Will this trend only grow as the years go on? I can only assume it will. After all, being gone doesn't mean being forgotten...and it doesn't mean you can't send e-mail. 

Do you have a backup plan for your online info? 

Leave your thoughts below.