There are many magazines and blog articles which stress the importance of online privacy based on the notion that once content is 'out there' on the Web, it's there forever.
Yesterday, Microsoft announced that users who keep a blog in their Live Spaces account will need to move it to another company, Wordpress. This process is not automatic though.
During the summer, a friend and neighbour passed away after a courageous, hard fought battle against cancer. Jonathan used Live Spaces to write about his battle in great detail, with a key aim that once he'd won the battle, it would serve to help other similar cancer patients. He included photos, personal thoughts, detailed medical information and contact details of financial, medical and psychological) support networks available to cancer victims.
So what will happen to Jonathan's blog? Unless someone contacts his wife (who wrote the final, agonising entry after he passed away), the blog will be deleted forever, never to return. So digital content doesn't really last forever - in this case it barely lasted a year.
So what can be done? There are a number of options available. Most blog platforms allow the author to automatically post to another blog platform. You can also host the site yourself (although this will only continue while you're paying for it).
Probably the safest option is to write a paperback book.
