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The Virb Peep Show

We're inching closer and closer to the launch of the new Virb, and it's only fitting that you get your first look -- right here. Earlier today, I posted four screen captures of some exciting new features.

Expect to see more and more over the coming weeks, as our pre-beta testing is wrapping up nicely. If you haven't seen your beta invite yet, hold steady. We'll be sending out a big wave in a few days.

For your viewing pleasure, we present a peek at the new Virb. Atop each snapshot, I've added a short explanation to let you know exactly what you are looking at. Clicking each image will take you to the next slide.

We're excited to see your feedback. Happy Saturday!

posted by Brad under New Features, Discussions

26 APR 2008

59 Comments

59 Comments

:O AWESOME is the only word that will come out of my mouth at the minute! Great work guys!

posted by Damien on April 26, 2008 at 8:35pm

for the functions displayed, i think this will be perfect.

posted by Chris on April 26, 2008 at 8:56pm

Looks damn sexy. Can't wait till it's out.

posted by Rob Goodlatte on April 26, 2008 at 8:56pm

Virb Team, phenomenal.

I really believe this shows growth. I have never yet to be fortunate enough to work on the redesign / update of a web application that I have had a part in. I know how I get tied to certain things that I have a hand in creating and I think that sometimes it is a struggle to separate one selves from your work. To step back and compare how it was designed to how what the popular use is. This is not always an easy concept.

I think a perfect example of this is new new message design. I dig how it has evolved with the way we communicate. This is exciting, I can't wait to see what else is behind the curtain.

posted by Nick Hall on April 26, 2008 at 11:13pm

Sweet! Can't wait to see it in action! XD

posted by Jaffar Khorshidi on April 26, 2008 at 11:21pm

Aww yea :) I'm keeping my fingers crossed for an invite! The stills look great – awesome job you guys!

posted by mike on April 26, 2008 at 11:28pm

Very exciting news! I'm starting to experience that "new car" smell in the air here.

posted by Tony on April 26, 2008 at 11:28pm

looking nice

posted by Grant on April 27, 2008 at 3:28am

Awesome stuff. Glad to see that there's been a really strong overhaul of activity monitoring. I'll be able to know when new posts are made in my favourite groups, now. (:

posted by Travis Willis on April 27, 2008 at 3:37am

Excited isn't even close! Those new features look like what we've all been waiting for and I'm already anticipating all the things that you haven't yet revealed. I especially like the sound of the notifications for comments and groups – keeping up has been the hardest part for me, when you consider that most stuff happens when I'm asleep.

I feel like a kid again … don't keep us waiting too long guys!

posted by moo on April 27, 2008 at 7:38am

Wow, I am really stoked now!

posted by Serenity on April 27, 2008 at 8:35am

I really love the new style of the inbox. You've taken some great inspiration from Gmail and totally blown me away. Keep the awesomeness team Virb!

posted by Dustin on April 27, 2008 at 9:07am

Now thats a nice design you got there m8s!

posted by Marko on April 27, 2008 at 0:23am

Virb is winz0R! I am winrar!

posted by Justafa on April 28, 2008 at 5:20am

The backend looks very nice. I like the messaging changes.

posted by Illusional.Sagacity on April 28, 2008 at 3:04pm

It's looking pretty awesome. I can't wait to see what you guys unleash.

One question though, will Virb 2 finally add 'lots of radical and amazing things' to all those 'prepped' pages that have been 'undergoing major reconstructive surgery' for the past year and a half?

posted by Zack on April 28, 2008 at 4:19pm

Wow, that looks pretty sweet. Can't wait for it to come along!!!

posted by pierre xi on April 28, 2008 at 4:40pm

Any minute now, I'll bet… I'm literally breathless!

posted by Jonathan on April 29, 2008 at 0:16am

Virb is one step closer to helping us put all of the things that make us us in one place ;)

posted by Jonathan on April 29, 2008 at 0:21am

Please God….. me?

posted by Nate on April 29, 2008 at 0:21am

I'm ecstatic about it!

posted by Marcy on April 29, 2008 at 2:58am

looks awesome dude

posted by michael on April 29, 2008 at 11:57am

Oh man. I think I missed the boat… Anyone get some good news in their email today?

posted by Nate on April 29, 2008 at 7:27pm

No one's missed the boat! :) We started the first phase of testing with a very small group of people. Has been a day full of miniscule bug squashing. We're pressing thru into the night. Hang tight, gang. Not much longer!

posted by Brad on April 29, 2008 at 7:33pm

Phew… good to hear your voice, Brad. Thanks for the words of comfort. I can't wait to squash some bugs with yal.

posted by Nate on April 29, 2008 at 8:36pm

Sorry for breaking of the unwritten "double post" rule but I thought this question would go best here.

I have always thought this ever since Virb started up. Any chance or any such way a Virb account will be able to connect with my Purevolume account? That would be rad for me. But that might not be a "shared vision" for the two sites. Which I would understand. If not that, then will there be any connections at all between the two sites? Or are they going to remain completely separate?

posted by Nate on April 29, 2008 at 8:58pm

So I guess I missed the first wave or do I still have a chance? I can't wait much longer!

posted by Jarrett Fuller on April 30, 2008 at 3:52pm

Good to meet you at Jelly today. Can I try the beta? Thanks!

posted by Lee Semel on May 2, 2008 at 3:29pm

One work: slick.

posted by Dan on May 2, 2008 at 6:17pm

Yeah, new style is really nice. Good job!

posted by Patrick on May 3, 2008 at 0:29am

pz io enpesee muii chavoo ii mi nombre es kelvin alberto tengo 13 años soii de hermosillo,sonora la ciudad del sol,! :) no pz nada k desiir nettaaa .. jajajaja!!

posted by kelvin on May 3, 2008 at 9:24pm

nobody wants to see rss?

posted by Justafa on May 5, 2008 at 11:37am

yummy !!!

posted by kinto on May 5, 2008 at 0:02am

Man, I really want in. I keep checking periodically throughout the day to see if I've been accepted into the beta.

posted by Travis on May 6, 2008 at 1:57am

I would love to see a collaboration of PureVolume and VIRB so we can finally have a much larger and greater selection of music. A lot of the artists I love haven't really got any of their good songs or sometimes haven't even got songs uploaded. No idea how you would do it though, don't know if any legal issues would be involved. I imagine not.

Would also like to see a feature where I can invite my contacts list instead of having to email each person. As I personally don't collect my friends emails as my Address Book does it for me. Be great to simply upload a contact list file or input login details for the likes of Hotmail, Gmail or even launch an application similar to Pownce's to access Facebook's friends.

However on the note about the new updates coming I love the new design and can see them being a great success!

posted by Greg Cooper on May 13, 2008 at 4:23am

I really want to see more Privacy options for blog posts! I LOVE and ADORE Virb but I can't really use it as a blog until I can just use it to post privately (for myself), for friends (friends only) and for the public.

I sure hope this gets wrapped in to this AMAZING design!!!! Keep up the great work!

posted by Jay on May 14, 2008 at 6:13pm

GREG: While a tight integration with PureVolume is a feature we aren't planning, your wish for a better invitation process is already in the works. We're starting with the ability to import your vCards, Gmail/Yahoo contacts, etc. As the social networking community (Virb included) moves to more 'open' standards, the ability to search Virb for your Facebook or MySpace contacts is a possibility too.

JAY: We're ramping up privacy and permissions extensively on the new Virb. We think you'll be pleased.

posted by Brad on May 15, 2008 at 11:40am

when do we get our beta invites?

posted by ashley on May 16, 2008 at 10:26pm

ASHLEY: We have already delivered the first wave of Private Beta invites. Once we are nearing phase 2 of the beta, we'll be inviting a much larger group. Hang in there!!

posted by Brad on May 19, 2008 at 0:34am

Will there be more freedom on custom modules/widgets we can embed?

posted by Gav on May 22, 2008 at 0:40am

wow! new look is awesome! i'm a virb fan. i cant wait to see it live :)

posted by Wilmer Murillo on May 22, 2008 at 0:47am

I love Virb :) Hope everything would still be fine as the users amass. :)

posted by voidnothings on May 22, 2008 at 1:40pm

The status updates look like a good response to Twitter. But Twitter has so much momentum now, maybe I'd consider an option to export status updates to Twitter, maybe not.

Anyway, I love how Virb imports my blog feed. But you're adding too much space between paragraphs.

FYI: My blog gets thousands of Myspace questions and yesterday I decided to make the transition to Virb. So I should be a Virb CSS expert soon ;-)

posted by Ferodynamics on May 23, 2008 at 11:20am

FERO: The 'push' is something we'll be working on post-launch; for not only Twitter but many other sites. Oh, yeah. RSS import spacing: another tiny annoyance that is squashed in the 2.0 release. Glad you are here!

GAV: Yessum, much more flexibility with module/widget embeds.

posted by Brad on May 23, 2008 at 0:22am

Come on guys! Hurry it up!

posted by Kholter on May 25, 2008 at 6:09pm

So many days of waiting.. It makes me to want it even more [;

posted by Justafa on May 28, 2008 at 5:26pm

*sigh*….still no plans to upgrade the 30 song limit ? Guess i'm stuck with Soundclick. The beauty with Virb is i can categorize albums. The 30 song limit kills it though.

posted by SHUSH on June 10, 2008 at 0:33am

Kholter & Justafa: Trust me. It's worth the wait. We're entering the second phase of the private beta in about a week.

Shush: Um. We never said we weren't upgrading the song limit. We're already increasing photo & video storage exponentially. Why wouldn't we do the same for audio? Stay tuned…

posted by Brad on June 10, 2008 at 6:37pm

@Brad

I really like Virb. Without Virb, well.. we'd just have Myspace & we all know how great that is; haha *cough. But back to my soon-to-be-point. I don't feel any real community involvement on Virb. (We are done talking about shitspace, so I'm not saying Myspace has community involvement compared to Virb because it doesn't.. at all). Sure, blog posts from time to time when updates come. Like this one for example, but that's it. Ask for feedback, get tons of comments. Stay tuned sort of deal. Nobody wants to "Stay tuned…". People want to be apart of Virb, as they make up Virb. <3.

As the "about us" states – "It's a great way to keep in touch and meet people with similar interests.". How do you go about meeting people with similar interests? Just a random idea of having forums comes off that.

posted by Ryan on June 11, 2008 at 5:51pm

Looks abit Apple.com-ish, but no worries I always love you designs.

posted by Guney on June 14, 2008 at 1:48pm

Tired of waiting!

posted by Kholter on June 16, 2008 at 5:03pm

It'd be really cool if there was some way to interact with virb from the desktop, maybe you guys could release an API for some people to work with?

posted by Rob Meyer on June 16, 2008 at 5:58pm

Ryan – I don't want to make this an overly simple answer, but I (and we) hear you. One of the biggest reasons we decided to tear down Virb and rebuild it from the ground up was to remedy many of the things we felt were 'wrong' with it. Finding people thru activity, interests, contributions, groups, etc; it's all been readdressed. Trust me, it's been a pain in my ass too.

Guney – Maybe Apple looks a little Virb-ish. ;) Ha.

Kholter – You may be tired of waiting, but re-building such a vast website and infrastructure ain't a walk in the park either, hombre. We're getting there. All we ask of you is patience. We'll do the rest.

Rob – Did you say API? Already in the works. Boom! I can't promise from day 1 of the upcoming re-launch, but we will have it in beta soon thereafter. We're excited to see some of the great things the community will do with it!

posted by Brad on June 16, 2008 at 10:43pm

posted by Kristina Hardin on June 19, 2008 at 10:07am

Man, I had to visit a couple of musician friends on That Really Inferior Site A Lot Of Bands Use the other day, and all I can say is, I am dying to see Virb get even better so I can keep telling them to get their asses over here. More community interaction and easier search-by-common-interests functionality is going to be SO DAMN GOOD. I'm sure you guys are hurrying, but HURRY. ;-)

Smooches ….

posted by Pete on June 19, 2008 at 10:31am

I will wait. I will be faithful. I'm sure the pay-off will be all the more worthwhile. I didn't realize you were rebuilding the infrastructure. I thought it was just additions to the system.

You guys really have to be careful about planting seeds of expectations. Virb and Vimeo are awesome, but they often promise things that take way too long to materialize.

posted by George on June 19, 2008 at 4:08pm

I'd be happy with a beta….. please. And you are right, God bless you for Virb…..and many blessings upon your head. ;o)

posted by Kholter on June 30, 2008 at 3:33am

Any word on when the new Virb will be released?

posted by Tim on July 2, 2008 at 1:56am

Well, it seems you guys might have hit a snag :-) … maybe things were *much* harder than initially thought ? … or maybe you ended up adding stuff never initially intended? (Somehow I had the impression that Virb was just around the corner six months ago).

Anyway, Virb looked *extremely* promising in the beginning, when I signed up, but there is hardly any 'happening' here and I found out I still end up using my Myspace account way more often. So, Virb 2 might be a do or die type of thing for you guys.

No pressure :-) … nooooo pressure ;-)

posted by Argax on July 2, 2008 at 0:31am

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