There’s a new kid on the block in the social networking space. It goes by the name of Virb. Granted, a new social networking site is released every 8.2 minutes these days. But Virb is a little different. It has the potential to not suck.
Now, I’m not a MySpace fan. But the kids these days seem to like it. I’ve always seen it as the modern day version of Geocities. Back in the day, Geocities (pre Yahoo! buyout) was the place where anyone could stake their own little piece of the web. Ripe with marquee banners and tiled pictures of the Hoff. 99.9% of sites on Geocities were the internet equivalent of a bowel movement… and still are. MySpace is Geocities with the ability to link up with “Friends”. So you still have the ability to create your digital shrine to the Hoff, but now your friends can share in the love.
Virb matches MySpace pretty much feature for feature. But does so in a very elegant and logical way. It’s also very pretty. But the real magic in Virb to me is the customization aspect. There are different levels of customizations. Basic and Advanced. Basic allows you to change colors, move around the sections of content, upload some pictures, etc. But as long as you remain in Basic mode, which I imagine most people would, it’s very hard to make your site look… um… “unpleasant”. You then have an “Advanced” way to customize your page. This allows you to dig right into the CSS and go hog wild. It also allows you to dig into some more advanced functions of the modules and add in some of your own markup.
Like MySpace, Virb is heavy into the music aspect. Allowing you to place your own music player on your page and it features artist centric profile pages. But Virb kicks it up a notch with Virbtunes. A plugin for iTunes that automatically uploads the songs you play in iTunes. This then provides stats on the most recent songs played, most popular artists, etc. The idea is in the future, Virb will be able to provide you recommendations for new music based on the music you’re listening to. But for right now, you can advertise your recent Freebird obsession.
Virb still has a ways to go though. It needs to flesh out the Fashion, Photography, Design, Comedy, Art and Sports aspects it’s advertising that Virb “Is”. It also needs to expand a bit on the social and community aspects. As of right now, the main form of community is linking up with “Friends” and leaving them “Comments”. Sound familiar? There are “Groups” in Virb, but this also relies heavily on comments. But based on their “New Features” section, this may soon be changing.
You can check out my Virb page to get an idea of what it’s all about.