About

Everyone will experience the death of a loved one at some point in their lives.  But what if the loved one was not a celebrity, a professional athlete or a famous public figure?  Don’t they deserve recognition too for the lives that they lived?
YouMattered.com was launched to honor the memories of a loved one.  

Through this site a person can:
•     Tell their stories by writing their biographies, post pictures and YouTube videos.
•     Let family and friends contribute to the site
•     Keep the site as a multimedia record to show to future generations

Although there are a number of existing online memorial websites, the idea of it, still sounds foreign to people.  It is not meant to replace headstones and obituaries, but rather to complement their memories.  When one looks at one’s grave site you only see their names and dates.  A website will tell their life stories.

YouMattered.com was inspired by the passing of Roderick W. Santiago’s mother.  He went through other virtual memorial sites and could not find what he wanted.  Being a web developer, he decided to create one for his mom and for others to use as well.

He developed the site so to have the following features:
•     Clean layouts and contents are logically grouped together
o     Tabs are used to navigate the memorial site.
o     Action buttons on the left where one can pay their respects and use popular social media to share the site.
o     Fonts used are fairly large to increase readability of the content.
•     Ability to change the site look and feel
o     Select from a number of themes
o     Customize the look further by selecting a background, a header and a footer color or choosing font combinations
•     Interactivity
o     An interactive visual timeline to highlight events of the person’s life
o     Add clickable and decorative falling objects such as flowers, snowflakes, etc.
•     Ease of use
o     Simple interface where one with a limited computer experience can create a site.
o     Hints and tips are provided throughout the site.
o     Family and friends can use their facebook© account to add their personal messages

A complete list of features can be viewed here:   http://youmattered.com/features/

There are two types of memorial sites that can be created:

1.     Basic – is completely free and has enough information, upload up to five photos and post tributes. It will stay online permanently.

2.     Premium - can be renewed yearly or permanently. It includes all basic features, plus up to 100 photos, add YouTube© Videos and background music and the look can be changed.

-     $14.99 / year - renew for 5 years and it will become permanent.
-     $49.99 permanent