LooseSuits

I got an invite today so signed up. Initially it looks quite good. I like its clean interface and opportunity to customise the page, but not completely muller the interface ala MySpace.

It does have some features which are a bit questionable, like the virbtunes idea, surely most people who will use that have a last.fm account.

As far as success is concerned, it depends how long it is in beta for as to how well it will catch on. It also depends on how many of your friends/contacts are using it, most of mine are facebookers so I use that, but would prefere them to be Virbers.

I know some of the people who run Virb so if they read this I'm sorry guys, but Virb offers absolutely nothing. Nothing goes on over there. It was cool when I first got invited to look around and to see what was up, but now what? Sure its pretty, but it does what the other social networks do and just leaves me with another place to click on profiles hoping to find sexy pics of chicks. I know the team behind it is talented (they run PureVolume.com), but it just seems there is no effort being put into Virb to make it standout from the rest of the crowd besides the design.

And it has had one of the longest betas ever.

It has great potential, but as Scriv's said it's not really offering anything new, and is just another account at this point. Hope they turn it around.

One of the main things we didn't want to do with my.9rules is lock people down into another service that wants you to create a photo album (that you have elsewhere), a blog (that you have elsewhere), videos (that you have elsewhere), and that stuff. I think our target was "savvy" people that already have their content elsewhere and are content with that, they just want better access to it.

MySpace took years to get to where they are now, to build their audience, and if Virb is going to succeed then it'll take years for them as well, if it happens. I don't see a lot of unique features that are only at Virb, apart from their CSS-enabled profile editing, which hits a fairly small niche. Of course they're not launched yet so things will definitely get changed and added, so we'll see how they fare once they're public.

I think it's another social network.

'nuff sed.

but better

But why?

Yeah it doesn't do anything differently, which is why my account is quite stale right now. I haven't even invited my friends to Virb because I don't think they'll find any more value in it enough to leave MySpace for Facebook.

Yes it has potential to get better, but I don't think it'll effect Facebook or MySpace anytime soon.

One of the main things we didn't want to do with my.9rules is lock people down into another service that wants you to create a photo album (that you have elsewhere), a blog (that you have elsewhere), videos (that you have elsewhere), and that stuff. I think our target was "savvy" people that already have their content elsewhere and are content with that, they just want better access to it.

MySpace took years to get to where they are now, to build their audience, and if Virb is going to succeed then it'll take years for them as well, if it happens. I don't see a lot of unique features that are only at Virb, apart from their CSS-enabled profile editing, which hits a fairly small niche. Of course they're not launched yet so things will definitely get changed and added, so we'll see how they fare once they're public.

Actually, Virb's doing the same thing--they're working on the ability to show your flickr stuff on your profile, as well as your blog posts. I believe they already allow you to post YouTube videos, as well.

I tried to post a Youtube vid, but I couldn't find anything that let you post linked video it looks like you need to upload a file.

Also when I uploaded an avatar it didn't show me the size it wanted and it wanted my to crop it to a wide size instead of square.

I'll keep poking round to see about other stuff but this place is better IMHO.

Hey Elliot, the Flickr functionality is there however you have to jump through some hoops and authenticate your Flickr account through Virb, and when I went to the videos section I didn't see anywhere to link to YouTube videos. Did you see the YouTube area anywhere?

The thing I like with Virb is the customization options.

Yes it does nothing different when compared to MySpace but it's not FUGLY.

And that's why I keep on asking what makes it better than Myspace? If you consider better to be the fact it isn't ugly like Myspace then I can deal with that, but if you consider better to be doing more things then I'm not so sure about that. It has a while to ramp up to critical mass (if that happens) before you can really get any good use out of it I think.

Honestly comparing MySpace and Virb is not a fair comparison (IMO). MySpace has a huge thriving community. All the geeks who don't like the ugliness can leave, MySpace will laugh because it wouldn't make a dent worth wasting an emotion on.

Virb doesn't have that luxury. IF it ever gets off the ground, it needs the geeks who like the prettiness and those MySpace people who don't see anything wrong with their "beautiful" sites that they spent so much time tweaking.

That doesn't change the fact that right now, at this moment, Virb is not "the" place to go to socialize. Not nearly enough people, not nearly enough interaction. It's still in beta.

I get what you guys are saying but it reminds me how a person who was a mean person in life dies and becomes a saint. Like all that bad he did disappeared. Virb hasn't launched so it can't be good yet. Then it has to scale to be a viable comparison to MySpace or any of the big social networks.

And the big one: it has to monetize. Going to be a huge hurdle there.

Quite honestly, Tyme, I say this in rebuttle:

I hope half of the people that make MySpace the horrible place it is never signs up to Virb. Sure, there are pervs, predators and stalkers out there, but I'm not even talking about those guys.

I'm talking about the people who create 15 bulletins that they copied and pasted from someone else that tell you you're going to die if you don't do the same. I'm talking about those people who use Facebook and create hundreds of groups with names like "I wear socks with flipflops, stop asking me about it". I'm talking about those people who ask for picture comments so they'll have some degree of closure that they otherwise can't find anywhere else. I'm talking about those people who do nothing social on social networks and turn it into their own pesonal bulletin board spaces with the exception of sharing horribly taken pictures.

If anything, that's the potential Virb has now while the userbase is still curious as to what this thing can do. That's my biggest fear about Virb right now, and that's the only thing Virb has going for it so far.

But again, comparing the two is an unfair comparison. Comparing a mature company to one in beta? Come on now. :)

Unless Virb has something in place to stop the things you mentioned, that is exactly what will happen because that's what people do. Did it way before MySpace with AOL and it will happen as long as the company allows it. The only reason why Virb (from what I can see) isn't like MySpace is because it's not widely used.

Personally I liked MySpace a lot more before it became so massively large. I have a MySpace account that I never use but honestly have no respect for MySpace. I have a Virb account but for me respect is earned and I have yet to feel it towards Virb (whereas MySpace lost my respect).

Again, my point was comparing the two is unfair to Virb. Way too much to put on a company that isn't open to the public yet. I would imagine (don't know for sure) Virb would like to have millions of users - how they handle them is yet to be determined.

Well I hopped in and played around. VIRB = myspace. The only difference I see is that they did a clean design. I think facebook is better than either of them as far as clean look goes.

Oh god, I created a monster.