An old school mate, Symone, passed away suddenly yesterday. I would not have known about her death had it not been for Facebook and other friends writing about the death in their status updates. In fact, if it were not for Facebook I would not have had any contact with this old school mate as we lost contact after we matriculated.

I've always wondered what happens to your account on Facebook, or any other Web 2.0 site for that matter, when you die? The beauty of Web 2.0 (as I understand the phenomenon) is that it allows you to have a personal presence on the web – a virtual "second life" if you like, that is a real-time life-like representation of your state of being, moods, actions and thoughts. It pretty much mirrors your real life (if you're as obsessed with it as I am:)). Unlike your life though, your web presence does not dissapear like your last breath does.

This hit home today, barely 24 hours after Symone's death, when I noticed that she had a stauts update. It reads …

Symone Van Der Walt passed away suddenly on 22/01/08. Her grieving family invite you to a memorial service on Saturday 26/01/08 at 10am. Cnr Trichardt & Kingfisher Rd, Boksburg.

It freaked me out to see an update from her. Clearly it was written by someone else who got access to her account, but the freaky thing is that the message comes from her real-time, life-like web presence. Well, it may not freak you out, but it gives me the hibby-jeebies! There's a sense in me (and this sounds very wierd) hat there needs to be a funeral for her online presence as well. Or perhaps, her FB account could carry on existing as a presence of rememberance for friends and family?