Within my lifetime
During this time a reasonable amount of access will be from people I know who have found out what I am up to and want to have a bit of a look at what I have posted. There will be a steady global trickle of "hits" on my websites as people look at my comments and click on my website links. Some of these people may be interested in the ideas of digital presence and digital afterlife and keep a check on my sites over time. I will also appear in other peoples digital space as we interact on social networking sites such as Facebook. Specific reasons people may access this material may include:
- Following my blog, comment streams
- Interested to know what I have said about someone, or a situation
- General interest in what I am up to
- Following up on a request for feedback on something I have posted
- getting information that might help them set up their own digital presence
After my lifetime
0 - 6 months
This could be a period of quite high activity. Provided people are aware of how to access the material, and given that my program should have been distributed to a number of people, I imagine people will just be curious to see what it is all about. They may then be interested to know if they feature in the material. Hopefully, some will begin to think about their own digital presence. There maybe some ongoing interest globally. It will be interesting to see if people engage and add to the material by leaving posts at sites such as 1000memories. Also, if people begin to develop their own digital presence I may sometimes appear in these.
7- 12 months
By now, hopefully, most people who were exposed within the first few months will have had a look at the material and access from these groups will have begun to taper off. I would therefore anticipate similar types of activity as for the first 6 months. I would however hope that material that was intended to influence people's activity (for example: supporting students with special needs, developing a digital presence) will have kicked in.
2 - 5 years
Access by family and friends will have probably reduced considerably by this point. It may be accessed by some to show their children what is there; may be for interest, may be for a school project? There may be access to follow up on a research project. By now I suspect the framework of digital presence and afterlife will be in place and people may no longer need to see what I have been doing as any sort of framework or model.
5 - 10 years
Similar to the first 5 years, but continued reduction in interest in my material by people who I have known; maybe more interest in developing their own digital presence using applications the have emerged (in a robust manner) for this purpose. Maybe still checking out some of my ideas to ensure that they are covering their bases.
11 - 50 years
Access by future generations who may be interested in who their ancestors were. Still access by people who would have known me. Probably digital presence will be so pervasive my ideas and material on this topic will be redundant. I hope so!
51 - 100 years
Over this period (at least towards the 100 year point), unless there are significant advances in medical technology, it is unlikely that any one alive would have known me when I was alive.
101 - 200 years
Now I am only known by artifacts, physical documents and my digital material. The digital material may have been reshaped into new forms, and new forms of accessing the material may have been developed.
200 - 500 years
What does the web and the internet look like? Where is my digital material? Does it still exist?
501+ years
To go further than 500 years out is very much in the realm of pure speculation. By this time it is possible that more people will exist in digital form than physical form? This may result in some risk. For example, who can be sure that the people in control of this virtual world will keep it operating? Will they have they same interest in history that current generations have?