Great idea BUT

Help the Aged is to promote MeRemembered.com, a new social networking website which allows members to write about their memories and meet other people online, to its supporters and old people.

The charity's online shop will direct users to meRemembered.com and in return Help the Aged will receive a 20% share of the registration and annual fee for every member who signs up via the link.

The new site enables members to share their life stories online, as well as keep in touch with friends and family via email and search the database for old acquaintances. Bereaved members can create an online 'memorial' to record the life of a loved one, and all profiles can then be formatted as a pdf file and printed out.

This site is trying to be another Friends Reunited.

Here is a bit of free consultancy to the people at meRemembered.com, even though you haven't asked for it.

You have a great idea and from what I can see web the site is very well constructed. There is an undoubted desire of older people to leave some enduring record of their presence on the planet so you have identified a real need.

BUT

For a social networking site to succeed you need to achieve volume and critical mass. I doubt (and hope to be proved wrong) that you will do this by having a £20 fee (for the multimedia option) to begin. Maybe you should have had a free period of 3 months and then start charging. Also, you should have seeded the site with more people before he launch. Nobody likes to be the first person sitting down in an empty restaurant.

A deal with Help the Aged sounds great but from a branding perspective you are associating yourself with the frail and elderly (not renown as likely users of the Web).

Having said this - I really hope it works out. Dick Stroud