What happens to your Facebook Account when you die ?

Posted by Chris on January 18th, 2011

Millions of people in the UK have made no provision for what happens to their internet accounts ( e.g. Facebook ) and assets when they die.

Those who attempt to do so are being invited by websites to do it in a way that will fail, meaning that friends may be sued

after their death by next of kin for meddling with the accounts. A new service provides an end to such uncertainty.

Not only has it become a tool for the fraudster, a trigger for divorces and a destroyer of state secrecy, but lawyers are beginning to

recognise a new problem with the Internet. Money lying in non-Bank internet accounts, as well as digital assets with a monetary

value (e.g. domain names, websites, designs, blogs, self-composed music, photographs, virtual world items, online businesses,

account balances and revenue streams) becoming lost forever not through hacking or crime but because, on our death, our next of

kin and friends may be unaware, do not have the passwords or, if they are aware, have no right in law, in the absence of a Will, to

access them.

If such matters were not complicated enough, legal jurisdictions vie with each other for control and internet service owners offer

confusing and conflicting policies for that final log out. Facebook, for example, allows anybody who claims to be a ‘friend’ to take

control and run your account as a memorial site to you. This can be deeply upsetting for your family.

Graham Ross , a veteran in the field of technology and the law, and anxious as anyone in his sixties of what will happen when he

types his final goodbyes, has thought out a solution – My Digital Executor.

Graham Ross says ” The big risk is family, friends and lawyers dealing with Probate not knowing about these accounts which then

become deleted by default of renewal or, in some cases, through lack of regular login. Valuable and busy websites will go

automatically back on the market for others to buy.”

“There is a way to direct control of these accounts and assets after your death but you must both use the device of a Will and

consider the site’s policy. Informal notes to a friend as offered by some services (eg www.legacylocker.com) have no legal effect (as

their emails concede) and , worse, can lead to the friend being sued by the next of kin or residuary beneficiaries in a Will for losses

resulting from their innocent interference with parts of your estate.”

“There is also the problem of ensuring those to whom you wish to give the accounts having access to your passwords. My Digital

Executor has thought through the problems and created a unique process.”

In law, what we own forms part of our estate. It does not have to be physical. ‘Intellectual Property’ doesn’t have to be particularly

clever but is everything you cannot sit in, or on, or put in a box.

“Not only does the service help people secure their digital estate on their death, but in providing a reason to make a Will, should

help reduce the 30m UK adults who have yet to make one. “

NOTE: Apart from the sentimental value and life record of Facebook accounts and blogs, thousands of people earn money from the

Internet such as by bedroom e-commerce (eBay, Amazon affiliate scheme etc), building up valuable domain names and search engine

optimised, and thus valuable, websites and blogs, uploading photographs to sites that licence them out, having their own music sold

by online record labels, playing virtual games such as World of Warcraft or Second Life where they build up online currency which

can be exchanged for real money, or sell their avatars and game items to speed up the buyers status growth in the game. The

Guinness Book of Records records that, in January 2010 , £228,263.00 was paid in an auction of a virtual space station in a virtual

world (Planet Calypso).

My Digital Executor – www.mydigitalexecutor.co.uk

CONTACT: Graham Ross – 01352 715616 or 07885 728801 or g.ross@mydigitalexecutor.com

Driving Internet Leads for UK SMB FutureLine using HubSpot – Part 3

Posted by Chris on December 23rd, 2010

Following the last blog

http://mandarainmaker.co.uk/wordpress/2010/12/21/driving-internet-leads-for-uk-smb-using-hubspot-inbound-marketing-part-2/

we got the 2 landing pages done as discussed earlier.

The visit/lead tracking system is working and we can see recent visitors details. These can be transferred to a CRM system and Salesforce.com is probably the easiest one to do this with although other are possible. We will address this shortly but for now the visit and lead records will be held within HubSpot ( they are always held in both places anyway ).

We had done some work around keywords/phrases – looking for words/phrases that were relevant but not too competitive – and we input these to the HubSpot system. We also had the HubSpot system look at the keywords/phrases being used by typical competitors. The HubSpot system identified which keywords/phrases were ” stronger ” than others.

The HubSpot system will show where the visits/leads are coming from in terms whether they are direct ( someone types in the FutureLine url ) via a Google search or from e.g. The FutureLine Blog, Social Media or Press Releases.

Typical Social Media sources would include:

– Delicious

– Digg

– LinkedIn

– Reddit

– Sphin

– Twitter

– Yahoo Answers

– Yahoo Buzz

– YouTube

 

We set up the FutureLine Blog and discussed the type and composition of beneficial blogs. It was noted that there should be ” Call to Action ” pieces at the end of each blog. HubSpot gets many of its leads via the HubSpot blog.

We also discussed what defined ” strong ” links and noted examples of these. They include e.g. links from high ranking blog sites; links from Press Release sites.

We also discussed the fact that we could ” buy ” traffic using Pay Per Click or Media buying ( CPM ).

We determined to get the ” Call to Actions ” set up on the website together with the landing pages that we had built.

We would also do more work on keywords and phrases and when we had arrived at the best words and phrases give consideration to including these words and phrases on the website and in blogs.

We would also do more research on the ” Top 10 questions ” asked by FutureLine’s customers and prospects.


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