People are increasingly building personal presences online. For instance, I have this blog, a Picassa web album, a Facebook account, etc. I have an online life, people communicate with me online, I have stores, opinions and photos online. So do millions of other people around the world.

What hadn’t occurred to me until today is that thousands of those people die every year, and their web presences will just go on. This article is from a guy whose friend committed suicide. The guy’s MySpace page has actually been pretty active since his death – it’s become like a shrine to the guy. His online presence lives on after his death.

Apparently Facebook has profiles for the students killed in the Virginia Tech massacre which are also still active. Strange…