Yesterday, I dreamt that my father died.  So I woke up upset and disturbed.  Disturbed because my father is going to Paris today, a trip I have a bad foreboding about.  Chewing bad mojo all morning led me to think about using blogs as a memorial of sort and then spilled out into thinking about dead people in social networks.  Here are some notable pieces from that trail:

Rewinding a blog back in time

I thought it might be neat to have a blog that moves backward in time with posts sorted in reverse order.  So when I die, my blog will show posts from the day before I died and then the day before that and so on.  There will be blog comments by visitors before and after I died.  There are problems with this idea but is worth savoring to look for hidden passages to new ideas.

Blogging from the Grave

It would also be interesting to turn my blog into a wiki-ish blog after I died so that my friends can post to my blog for one reason or another.  In a sense, 'I' continue to live within the mind of my friends so 'I' am still blogging from the grave.

The Dead as a Party Host

I mentioned before that a 'center' of a social network doesn't have to coordinate or even be aware of the synergy he or she creates.  Come to think of it, the center doesn't even have to be alive.  For example, people who met each other at a funeral forms a social network around a dead person.

Zombies in Orkut

What should happen when a member of Orkut or LinkedIn dies?  It's bound to happen or have happened already.  Should his node disappear?  That doesn't make sense.  Two people having a friend in common is relevant even if the friend happens to be dead.  But if the node is left within the network, what are the downsides other than having to add a gravestone icon to the profile?