Company officials note that thanks to Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, the world has been taught how to use the new social media utility, but unlike the others, Cancer.im is more than a social network.

FORBES: Social Networking Site Similar to Facebook Dedicated To Cancer

Writing on a Facebook page set up to help track down Mr Templeton, his family issued a note of thanks for all the support it had received over the past five and a half years.

BBC: Alan Templeton