I spoke with a homeless married couple today in Boston Common. The gentleman asked me for some food, while I was on the phone. We ate together, and he told me the story that brought he and his wife onto the street.

When we finished our meal, I signed onto my Starbucks wireless account. We looked up resources for the homeless in Boston. Then he gave me his email address and promised to keep in touch.

Email meant some much more for he and his wife than for many people. Their email was a real address—something that belonged to them, which they checked from the public library, and which let them more fully participate in the world.

Related Reading:

• Laptops give hope to homeless.
• Internet Access and Use Among Homeless and Indigent Drug Users in Long Beach.
• Curbside Internet for the Homeless:
• The Homeless Nation is Canada’s only website created by and for Homeless Canadians. Through a national network of outreach workers,
• If you’ve ever been homeless–or are now–here’s a new list just for you. It spans three continents and a range of worldviews and backgrounds.
• Hope and Help for the Homeless.

*Photo marked public in Flickr:

Image code by deepbox.com

Myspace and Facebook users are paying tribute to their deceased friends by changing their profile pictures to the image of the deceased, creating interactive tributes using audio and video clips and producing blogs where they can publicly express their grief. These online community users come together in an act of solidarity to reflect on the lives of their loved ones online. They form and join R.I.P. groups and create the equivalent of a street side memorial using new tools to communicate their sentiments.

I wonder how long it will take for the collaborative grieving to impact traditional ceremonials surrounding death. Will there be a time in the future when we leave comments on our deceased love ones Myspace page upon exiting the funeral, or send virtual flowers to their Facebook group?