It’s a Virb.

I got an invitation to the supposed hot new social network, the very 2.0 Virb. I was super curious after taking an initial look at the design, but wasn’t sure exactly what it was until I created an account and logged in. In short, it’s just about everything you’d hope MySpace would be, only 100x less … ugly.

Basically, users can create a profile not unlike MySpace with their interests, tags, photo albums, music tastes and more, in a clean, neat framework that is super easy to navigate. In a perfect world, Virb would surpass MySpace and Facebook as the easiest place to start a band profile, I imagine. Though at the end of the day it appears as though Virb offers more than that: you blog, Flickr, Lastfm, MySpace, comment, customize all in one place. Add mp3s, videos, photos, etc. pretty easily and set up a page to work between all your media. I wonder if it’s neat enough to make everyone move.

I won’t go into my social networking rant, because it’s probably obvious how ridiculous a lot of it is. That being said, if I’m going to spend time using such a thing, it might as well be slick and easy to navigate.

What I do know is that while I can’t imagine I’ll update it very often, I’ll definitely browse it, it’s too pretty not to. Plus there seems to be an inordinate amount of attractive people there–sort of like this party I was at on Saturday. Where do they come from?

Anyway, the customization options are great, it’s sort of hard to make it ugly (though I imagine that will change when / if people move over from MySpace), and you can sorta set up shop and chillax.

Right now it’s in BETA and invite only, but if you’re interested in checking it out I’ll find out how attractive you are and then make a decision. <3

I’ve noticed a large influx of people to VIRB recently and it makes me wonder if they’re going to take a GMail approach to the whole deal and _never_ come out of beta - just letting the invites increase in capacity more and more. Gmail is still in Beta and, as far as I know, still not open to public signups. With that in mind it might bode well for VIRB to have a higher quality level of people - at least people that aren’t going to post new announcements every 15 minutes because they are bored at their jobs.

Heh, that sounds about right, especially from the marketing standpoint. From what I can tell the quality of membership over there is pretty solid, I’ve found a handful or two of people I know from elsewhere online and have added them, but none of them seem too … eager/MySpace-ish. That’s a really good thing, especially for bands or other artists who seem to gain some sort of instant coolness by having a profile on an invite-only networking site.

I’ve been pleased over-all, even the strangers that request my internet friendship seem interesting, which is more than I can say for my burgeoning little MySpace.

I should note that MySpace makes me want to kill things, but is sorta necessary for my Austinist work–everyone is there! Wtf!

I would love an invite, yet i am so not cool.

Paige, I’m totally hot and I’d love to check it out.

I’m intrigued, especially if the design is prettier than MySpace. I frickin’ hate MySpace, even though Aimee Mann is my friend there. If there’s an attractiveness quotient involved, though, I’ll have to wait until the average-looking people start joining.

I heard about this a couple of days ago. My first inclination was “gimme,” but between a work email account, a personal email account, a flickr account, a personal myspace account, two band myspace accounts, a band website/blog, message boards, and a blogspot account, I’m afraid I don’t have anything left to add to the internet.

As much as i’d like to see the integrity of Virb stay intact, I don’t see how that will serve those members with music profiles very well (or at least offer up a substitute for Myspace) as long as it’s invite only. That really limits the exposure their music will get.

But i’m certainly addicted to my profile(s) on Virb and would love it to not turn into Myspace v.2 when all the Joe’s and Jane’s migrate over in an open sign-up environment.

Right now it seems to be mostly for the designer/musician crowd, and i’m not ashamed to say I like it that way.

Completely different program but you have to check this out -> similar to Last.fm’s feature but cooler. http://www.iconcertcal.com/installation.php

Oh you know I want one.

I would like an invite. Just to see it, really. It’s not like I’ve ever made an actual friend from MySpace, though I have heard from high school friends and such.

I’m fooling around with Virb, too. It’s nice that it’s less ugly but so far I don’t see that it’s better with regard to one of my other complaints about MySpace, namely its ability (or lack thereof) to play well with other systems. MySpace was famously accepting of javascript and anything else people wanted to dump into it until it got massively hacked in mid-2005, at which time it turned off javascript overnight. MySpace still accepts Flash but that’s about it. I haven’t dug much yet into what does and doesn’t work in Virb, but I do know that when I tried to put my twitter badge on my Virb page it failed. Nor have I seen (for example) people incorporating their Flickr photos into their Virb pages.

The other half of playing well is an API, RSS feeds, etc. with which to get content *out* of a system. MySpace sucks in this regard. Hopefully Virb will do better than that although Virb can’t do much in that direction as long as it’s locked up behind a password.

P.S. Did I mention twitter? It’s the other place where I’m told the cool kids are hanging out. Friend me: http://twitter.com/pzriddle

I, like a few other people, hope that Virb stays in beta. I’m sure there’ll still be plenty of morons on there, but it would definitely cut the number down. Now I just need to find someone to invite me…

Can it be true? Does a yonder night appear to vanquish that great evil known as MySpace? If only a password to this magical place I could find…

I’ve been doing some major googling on the subject of Virb, but try as I may I cannot get in! I’d love in invite, if you have any left.