谁来料理你的数字遗产？Entrustet Handles Online Assets After Death
语音:美式发音 适合讨论
语速:175词/分钟
关键词:Entrustet, digital assets, after death
Ever thought about what happens to your Facebook, MySpace or Flickr accounts once you’ve passed away? This year, 285,000 Facebook users will pass away. Barclay Pollock spoke to a Madison-based company that helps people manage their digital life from 1)beyond the grave.
Pollock: 2)Tucked away in a small office above a Wisconsin 3)veterans museum you’ll find Jesse Davis and Nathan Lustig, co-founders of Entrustet, one of the first companies dedicated to handling your digital assets after death.
Davis: You can literally go on and for free organize all of your digital assets.
Pollock: Davis says he got the idea a few years ago while reading The World Is Flat by Thomas Freidman. In the book, Freidman talks about Justin Ellsworth—a soldier who was killed in Iraq—and how his family had to fight for access to his Yahoo account after he died. Davis says that got him thinking and led to the discovery of Entrustet.
Davis: What if Justin didn’t want his parents reading every single e-mail correspondence he had ever had with anybody? Maybe he had wanted the account passed on to a girlfriend or, you know, somebody else, or maybe he had wanted it deleted altogether.
Pollock: According to Lustig, the software allows a person to either 4)assign an 5)heir or have their digital assets deleted. He says the company covers sites like MySpace, Facebook, and Flickr, that may just have sentimental value, but that they also cover sites with 6)monetary values.
Lustig: So if you have a blog that 7)generates money, or if you have an online business, or if you have domain names, and no one can get access to that, your survivors will 8)miss out on an economically valuable potential 9)windfall.
Pollock: The company launched its website last week. So far 550 people have signed up. That’s more than they expected, and they believe that number will go up.
有没有想过一旦你离开这个世界以后,你的Facebook、MySpace或者Flickr的个人账号将会怎样?今年,28.5万的Facebook用户会离开人世。巴克利·泊洛克采访了一家位于麦迪逊的公司,这家公司帮助人们在其离世后管理他们的数字生活。
泊洛克:在威斯康星退伍老兵博物馆楼上的一间小办公室里,我们见到了耶西·戴维斯和内森·拉士廷,他们是Entrustet网站的两位创办人。Entrustet是最早为逝世用户继续管理其数字资产的网站之一。
戴维斯:你可以真正免费地继续管理所有的数字资产。
泊洛克:戴维斯说他的灵感来自于数年前阅读的由托马斯·弗莱德曼所著的《世界是平的》一书。弗莱德曼在书中讲述了士兵贾斯廷·艾司沃斯战死于伊拉克后,其家人为了获得其雅虎网站账号而费尽周折的故事。戴维斯说这个故事让他掩卷沉思,而Entrustet网站随后应运而生。
戴维斯:如果实际情况是贾斯廷并不想让父母看到他生前与任何人有过的所有往来电子邮件,那又会怎样呢?也许他只是想把自己的账号转给一位女朋友,你知道,又或者是其他什么人,又或者是他想干脆将账号彻底删除呢。
泊洛克:据拉士廷介绍,软件可以让用户指定一名继承人,或者是将自己的数字资产完全清除。拉士廷说,他们公司涵盖的网站包括MySpace、Facebook以及Flickr等。这些数字资产里有的或许只是情感价值,但他们也涵盖一些具有金钱价值的网站。
拉士廷:所以,如果你有一个可以赚钱的博客、网络公司或者是域名等等,你去世以后,其他人无法使用你的账号,你的亲友很可能会错失一大笔潜在的横财。
泊洛克:该公司上周正式发布了他们的网站,目前为止已有550人注册了。这比他们预想中的要多,他们相信这个数字还会继续上升。
Comments 观点参考
★ The digital afterlife is becoming a more important issue everyday and will continue to do so as the Internet grows older.
★ Death is always a morbid[病态的,恐怖的] topic, but we’re mortal beings and it’s better to discuss this topic sooner rather than later.
★ Social networking sites have also equipped their sites for dealing with death. Facebook created a new feature allowing deceased users’ pages to be memorialized[纪念].
★ Why pay money for someone to keep your passwords for you, just write them down, put them in a sealed envelope and lock it in a safe.
★ If this is an issue for someone, they were spending WAY too much time in the virtual world and not enough time in the real world.