So we’ve got social networking sites for tweens, professionals, college grads, Starbucks drinkers, and dog lovers. Why not the dead?

Tributes.com [led by Monster.com founder Jeff Taylor] is scheduled for a soft launch in June. It aims to provide a central location to house online memorials for those who have passed on. It’s starting with $4.3 million in funding, with The Wall Street Journal as a lead investor. […]

The site sets itself apart from memorial sites like SweetMemoriesSite.com, ChristianMemorials.com and PreciousMemoriesAndMore.com in two ways. First, people can find information on those who’ve died with a name search from a database that includes the entire Social Security Death Index since 1936. And second, the site plans to market more to the funeral industry than other sites, where individuals pay for tributes.

The venture competes squarely with the existing site Legacy.com, which uses Social Security death records and also picks up obituaries from 650 newspapers.1 Tributes.com will attempt to partner with funeral homes in an effort to cut newspapers out of the loop.

Tributes will allow people to verify deaths, get memorial service information, and leave tributes and messages.