Tasty Blog Snack

Everything you hate about MySpace.com Virb.com fixes. Even in it's beta form, Virb just about covers every aspect of what a great Web 2.0 social networking site needs... and even a few "cute" things that aren't needed, but give the site that extra edge that most lack.

Unless today if your first day on the internet and you managed to make tastyblogsnack.com one of your first websites (thanks), you probably have a blog and are a member of flickr. Thankfully, Virb understands the importance of importing RSS feeds and soon they will allow you to do just that with your external blog and flickr photos. This is pretty important to most users and many sites are accidently neglecting. Can a website be too egotistical to allow for RSS integration from an outside source? Possibly.

If you've ever woke up in the middle of the night crying in a cold sweat from a nightmare, then you might know the feeling of what it's like attempting to customize your MySpace page. Virb is extremely customizable allowing beginners and CSS experts to dabble and test their design skills. The basic editor allows you to add change the organization of your layout and color scheme. With the advanced editor, you have free reign to design your own template. Also in a future update, they will have the option for you to save your themes for use at a later date. Beautiful.

The little things about Virb is what shows shining potential over most others. Fans of last.fm's iTunes or other audio player (there are others?) will love their virbtunes plugin, allowing you to publicize your mp3 plays over your profile. In their video player, there is a "cute" little lightbulb that will dim your browser screen to improve visibility. The Virb user homepage is neatly designed giving you quick access to all of your content, including friends, music, photos, blogs, groups and your settings to customize your profile. If you wish to browse user profiles with their default customization, they've added that option at the top of every page. Brilliant? Yes.

MySpace has been a great run for everyone on the social networking bandwagon, but it is time to move on. For a website that has been around over 4 years, it's almost impressive at how terrible it truly is. Most people are to the point that receiving errors isn't something out of the ordinary and it's just brushed off with a click somewhere else. Only on MySpace is that an accepted practice.

Labels: myspace killer, social networking, virb

Posted by Justine Ezarik on Sunday, February 18, 2007 at 11:03 PM | Permalink