Monday, July 26, 2004
Ghost Sites
The internet is full of ghost sites. Once thriving, active sites now littering cyberspace with failed dreams and broken links. Ghost sites occur for a number of different reasons - ranging from the person responsible becoming bored with their (usually personal) website and moving on with something bigger and better (such as a life beyond the confines of cyberspace); to a failed e-commerce venture. More about these types of sites can be found here and here. However, I want to talk about what happens when the creator of a personal website suddenly dies. This is heart-wrenching stuff - particularly when the site's creator is young.
These are truly ghost sites. Inhabited by photos of the creator in many fun and interesting poses, lists of their hopes and dreams, their poetry, their opinions on topical issues, their whole lives spilled out for all to read in cyberspace. When they die, their website is left floating in cyberspace, not updated and left as a reminder of a life cut short. In some circumstances his or her friends pay the site's ongoing hosting or domain registry fees, post comments about their friend, and continue this lasting tribute to him or her.
This act of friendship, by those who knew them in real life or in the virtual world, is truly moving stuff. I can only imagine, as more and more people create blogs and personal websites, and statistically speaking, more personal website creators die for whatever reason - including old age - these types of ghost and tribute sites will only become more common.
If you know of a ghost site or a tribute site out there, please let me know about it by posting a comment below. I'll start with one that I stumbled across the other day:
CodysWorld
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