Virb Archive

Over the past week I have been speaking with Gonzalo Arzuaga. Gonzalo runs a new site located at KillerStartups where he reviews lots of new startups. I asked Gonzalo if he would be willing to pick five startups every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to profile on CenterNetworks. He agreed and below is the first post – let's call it a beta! Let me know if you like this idea!

Scrapblog.com – Create a World for your Pictures

Scrapblog is an awesome site that goes above and beyond all of your scrapbooking dreams. The different backgrounds, stickers, and templates available are endless. You can even add videos, links, music, and audio narration to give your scrapblog some flavor. More info »

Helium.com – Democratization of Knowledge at its Finest

Helium operates in a manner similar to Wikipedia, but it differs in its organization, content, and style of writing. The premise is that any given topic should have at least a couple of different articles written about it. Then, users read them and rate them, and the highest-rated articles make it to the top. More info »

Swoot.com – A New Face for the Internet

Swoot, you could say, is a browser portal; download one plug-in and you'll be able to access any browser on a range of subjects. Swoot is like window dressing for your virtual view; don't get tied down to the standards, tailor your browser, make it your own. More info »

Virb.com – A Social Networking Revolution

Forget the clutter and applications that never work of MySpace and check out the new social network, Virb, that will blow all others away. It's like they saw how much people hated the chaos of other social networks and decided to bring us the clarity and crispness we desired with a whole bunch of other fun features that work really well. More info »

GoPlan.info – Online Project Management and Collaboration Tool

Goplan provides you with all of the tools you need to productively and efficiently perform group projects. Their features include: managing multiple projects, managing task lists, controlling issues with issue tracking, publishing public facing project news, synchronizing everyone with a calendar, chatting in real-time with project members, and more. More info »

VIRB is live, and to put it mildly; it rocks.

VIRB is a competitor of myspace, there's no escaping that. It's a generalized social network, same as myspace. That's about where the comparisons end. My first impression of the site was that it was a very beautiful website. Aesthetically pleasing, and a quick look under the hood wow'ed me. As a web developer myself, I'm extremely passionate about web standards and semantic markup. It was a pleasure to see this site has surpassed even my high expectations.

The site is the brainchild product by the genius developers of Unborn Media Inc.. It appears to be a spinoff company, taking it's own name as Virb Inc.

VIRB has all the fixtures of a high end social network. Video, music, and blogs are all staple features. Where VIRB accels is in it's usability. The site is plain addictive. Spend 5 minutes with it and you'll be ready to close your myspace page. Profile customization starts with simple color selection but extends deep. So deep that you can alter the core HTML of your page, as well as add your own CSS.

Another first for a social network, that I've seen, is the ability to link up your flickr account. Two quick clicks and your profile is reeling with flickr goodness. Several other features are unique to the site, including VirbTunes, an iTunes extension that will post your most listened to iTunes songs on your VIRB profile.

Sign-up is a cinch, and the site runs beautifully overall. The layout is pleasing, the javascript is unobtrusive, the features are incredibly well done, and best of all; it's fun! To quote a friend, "There's no thinking… I just do."

The only drawback I can find is that the custom modules feature only allows modules from certain approved websites. I'm hoping in the future that they can develop and/or use an existing widget standard. As a widget site owner, I really want the ability for my widgets to be on VIRB.

I'm notoriously tough on websites. Design, usability, semantics, and web standards are all categories that have earned me a reputation at my day job. I'll put it out there as solid as I can; I have never seen a site as impressive as VIRB. Now, I could sit and evangelize all day, but I need to go play with my VIRB profile!

James Thomas is a web developer living in Orlando. During the day he can be found working for the mouse, and spends most of his evenings working on various projects in a desperate attempt to change the web.