Virb

Love me, Tender

We are happy to announce that we've migrated all of our discussion forums and FAQs to the wonderful Tender App. We've been using their product Lighthouse for some time, and this migration completes are move to their services.

Where are my discussions?

Unfortunately in the move we decided it would be best if we started with a clean slate. This means that all previous discussions are no longer available. If you need or would like to bring back one of your discussions, please get in touch with us through our new support system. We apologize if this inconveniences you, our lovely user, but we think long-term it will help us better serve you and the community.

Virb, notified

One of the benefits of moving to Tender is that we will all be notified when a support request comes in. Previously, this was only available through the contact form. Now, the whole team can respond to an issues, file a bug with our Lighthouse system, and better serve you fine folks. We hope that this will facilitate not only better support for everyone, but help us build a better Virb.

Virb: betterifiedificationism

This move is a piece of our new goals as a team and as a company. By removing discussions from our care, we no longer have to maintain the code and can focus more on support. If something pops up that is a FAQ, we can easily add it to our our new knowledge base. The search is better for support issues too!

If you'd like to file a support issue, or start a discussion, please login and click on the help link in the top right corner.

We believe this is a win-win for us and our peeps (you), and in the future expect to see more great changes here at Virb. a

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Update-ification

Comment Subscriptions
We've added comment subscriptions, bringing our email notification technology all the way up to 2004. Now when someone posts a comment or replies in a thread where you have commented, you will be notified (by email). Finally, without logging into your Hub, you can enjoy people's "LOLs" in reply to your witty and insightful remark, you beautiful person you.

Reengineered customization
We've re-engineered customization to be easier to understand and use. We've refined the UI in hopes that it will help, not hinder you. Some of you will notice, some of you will not. It’s future compatible with our big, tasty Hub and Profile updates coming this winter.

Profile Headers
You can now add header images for the following skins: Classic Chrono, Gazette, and Classic Audio. Please, add your own unique headers and styles to show to others: "I am creative. I am here." It's a simple way to look your sharpest, without having to deal with frightening HTML or CSS. Custom background support is on the way too.

IE Compatibility updates
Being a Mac development house, sometimes we miss out on our much larger brother Internet Explorer. We've made strides to rectify this and make Virb IE-friendly-er. If that's not Windows 7 ready... then we don't know what is.

Lifestream... by default
The default skin for personal profiles is now Classic Chrono. We hear what you’ve been saying, and now it's easier to set up your personal Lifestream. This only affects new signups. We are very very interested in Lifestreaming, and we are very very very very (very) interested in interesting and wonderful creative content. *hint hint*

Profile Performance
We've added some backend optimizations to make profiles display a little bit quicker. Virb as a whole is a little bit faster today. We're still moving towards our goal of ludicrous speed. More behind the scenes enhancements arriving in the next few weeks.

Marty, your future is whatever you make, so make it a good one.

We've stepped back, looked at where we are and decided it's time to implement where we're going. The next major release this winter will change Virb, this includes a redesigned (and account tailored) HUB, Facebook Feeds, and piles o’ goodness for Portfolio and Audio accounts. We're really working on improving this site and how you add, share and find stuff (read: cool content). We're taking a page from the Thoreau playbook and "simplify(ing), simplify(ing)". There will be more on this later, but for now we enter our weekend cave to sleep, perchance to dream..

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10 Photo Sweepstakes Finalists

Over the course of the past 2 weeks, thousands of photos were nominated in our first ever Photo Sweepstakes. Each night, we'd scour through that giant pool of awesome and make a short list of candidates, ultimately settling on one photo each day that was chosen as a finalist. 10 photos emerged and the photographer of each got a free pack of Moo cards. Boom!

So ends the first phase and now, the fun begins. We want the Virb community to help us determine which of those 10 shall emerge victorious and lay claim to the grand prize, a Leica C-Lux 3.

You can see all the finalists below in all their photographic splendor, so help one lucky photographer by choosing which is your fave. You'll have until midnight tomorrow to head on over to the Sweepstakes page and cast your vote. Make it count.

Thanks to all the photographers (and cool photo-finders) out there for taking great shots and sharing them with Virb. You'll be seeing many more nominations that weren't chosen find their way onto Explore in the coming weeks.

#1
Fleamarket Time by clips

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#2
I can set my soul to rest by wiseacre | paul armstrong

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#3
Jerry in 81 El Camino by Brad Imotichey

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#4
angie & her niece, portland, june 2009. by meganmcisaac

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#5
FIREBIRD by Hernan Corera

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#6
Kaitlyn by Collin Hughes

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#7
Fete de l'Huma 2007 by Lily May's Paper Ships

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#8
Meta by Tom Watson

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#9
Breakfast of Champions by Rachel

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#10
the nears & the faraways; by annie stephens

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All new: Virb Short URLs!

Let's say you've got a favorite photo on virb...

Candace by Bummer City Photography

...and you'd like to share that photo with your followers on twitter. Unfortunately, that photo's url is 34 characters long and your accompanying message is 110, putting you just over the 140 character limit on twitter. What to do?

A) Existing short url services
You could use one of the existing url shorteners like tr.im or bit.ly. They'll knock that character count down to about 10-13. Sweet! However, those services (as well as most others) don't really give any idea as to where that link is going. It's a blind click.

B) Virb's short urls
Give virb's short urls a try! In the "Details" area of every entry on virb (photos, links, videos, etc), you'll find a short url for use on twitter (and any other service you decide to use it on). In the case of the photo mentioned earlier, the url virb.com/bummercity/photos/4476116 now becomes virb.com/p/4476116. Your original 34 character url is now 18 characters, with the added bonus of everyone knowing where the link is going! Not only that, but the /p/ tells them it's going to a photo page. Other slugs include /v/ for video, /a/ for audio and /t/ for text (links, status, posts, quotes).

Enjoy!

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Posted by Josh

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Toggle status updates in Overview

Already in the works as part of our next release, is an exciting overhaul for the Activity section of your Hub.

Until that time, we know many of you would love to silence the constant noise of status updates and Twitter feeds that stream through your Overview tab. They can be overwhelming. We've heard you, and we agree.

So, until we debut the secrets of Virb 2.2, we've added a snazzy little button atop Activity Overview. Click it to hide all status/Twitter updates from those you follow. Click it again to show them.

Clickity-click. It's like magic.

Enjoy!

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Posted by Brad

5 Comments

DDoS inadvertently affecting Feeds

Several of our official Feeds (e.g. Twitter & LiveJournal) are experiencing ongoing denial-of-service attacks (DDoS) today. If your Feeds are not updating, these attacks are likely to blame.

Once these sites have fully restored service, your Virb Feeds should return to normal.

Stay in the know with ongoing DDoS updates from Twitter and LiveJournal.

Thank you.

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Update, Aug 6 @ 6:35PM EST: Twitter has notified us that they have blocked certain services to better contain their ongoing denial-of-service. While they hope to have it resolved shortly, this does mean that Twitter feeds will not work.

Once Twitter raises their restriction, your feeds will resume normally. Do not attempt to delete and re-feed your Twitter account.

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Posted by Brad

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Getting Started with Circles

One of Virb's great new features is Circles, a way for you to organize the people/places/things/etc you follow on virb into... well... circles. To give you an idea of how powerful these can be, I'll share my setup with you:

Circle #1 - Photographers / Artists
This circle is filled with individuals that take amazing photographs and/or create excellent artwork. A small sampling includes Tom Watson, Aaron Leavitt, Elizabeth Weinberg, Diana Pantalones, Breezy, Kolja Warnecke.

Circle #2 - Music
This circle is filled with bands, singer-songwriters, etc. A small sampling includes Great Northern, The Republic Tigers, Twin Falls, Spires.

Circle #3 - Finders of Cool Things
This circle is filled with people who find amazing stuff both on and off virb... links, videos, photos, etc. A small sampling includes Pandamoranda, Melissa Garcia, Matt Hogan, Chris.

...so, what now?

Here's where all this circle-creating pays off. If I head over to the Activity › Contributions page and take a peak at the drop-down in the far right, I can now filter this page by my circles.

If I'm in the mood to check out *just* the recent photos from my favorite photographers, I'll select the "Photos" sub-nav option and the "Photographer" circle. If I want to see what new audio tracks some of my favorite bands have uploaded, I'll select the "Audio" sub-nav option and my "Music" circle. If I'm interested in what great new links, videos, etc have been found online, I'll select the "Links" sub-nav option and the "Finders of Cool Things" circle.

And there you have it! A nifty little way to filter down to *just* the type of content I'm in the mood for.

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posted by Josh

4 Comments

Using Virb to Find Cool Stuff

There is a lot of great stuff on this little website we call home. It's packed with great musicians, photographers, designers and all sorts of clever, talented, beautiful people. A lot of users come to our site, setup their account and add their friends per norm of social-networks, but Virb, unlike many other networks is a place to explore how people get down with creativity.

There's are many simple ways to find really cool and interesting pieces easily.

1. Explore

Explore is controlled by the Virb team. We peruse the Virb-trix and find pieces of a particular quality which we quantify as interesting. Take for example the explore photos page: http://virb.com/explore/photos

There's no math or science behind it, and each team member has their own voice, their own opinions. What we try to do is figure out what's excellent, crazy, demented or interesting within the limits that a child wouldn't be frightened, or our boss Brad.

2. Search

Search, the glorious mechanism which you all know so well. We've tried to tailor our search functionality for ultimate explore-ability. Take for example this simple search: http://virb.com/search?q=Acoustic

As of this evening it shows 528 profiles, 11 groups, 185 photos, 208 albums, 269 text pieces and a whole lot of creative juice. This is a fairly basic search with a very broad reaching term, but it best compensates for our team's poor ability to find all the great stuff you lovely people put out.

3. Friends

Who better to recommend something you like than a friend. It's unlikely that you don't have friends with strong opinions about music. So look for the guy with geeky glasses or your designer friend and go to your HUB and send a message

To do such a thing, search for your opinionated designer friend in the messages search box, click on "send message" and wait for their reply.

Here is some sample text to make it even easier:

Dear Nerdy Web Designer Friend,

It has come to my attention that you have the ear for the latest/best/classic acoustic music to come out of Nashville/New York/Seattle/Austin. Care to point me to their Virb-aliscious profile?

Best to you and Photoshop,
Kenny

Obviously, replace my name and Photoshop with Fireworks as necessary.

There you go! Three ways to find really cool stuff on Virb with minimal effort (the best amount of effort).

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posted by Kenny

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Countdown to 2.1

I ran out of time last week, so this update is a few days past due. Simmy and I traveled to Portland, Oregon to present the closing keynote for the WebVisions conference. It was a refreshing experience to openly discuss the ups and downs of building a company and a community. Good stuff. I will make certain to post a video of the presentation (and our slides) in the coming weeks. Yet, for now, let's focus on the wave of upgrades coming soon to a Virb near you.

If all goes as planned, we will begin the rollout of the 2.1 upgrades next week; most likely mid-week. If anything changes, I shall let you know.

It has been two months in the making, so below you'll find a summary of some features/enhancements/fixes coming in this update.

That's all for now. Stay tuned....

Modifications and Features in the 2.1 Update:
- 100% new Groups
- Share non-Virb media in Groups
- Personal Domains
- Virb Bar
- Explore
- Share on Virb bookmarklet
- Re-Virb feature
- Like, Re-Virb & Comment within Activity in the Hub
- Improved activity notifications via email
- Community Invitations
- Links now support embedded media
- API Private Beta (Phase 1)
- Hub UI improvements
- Follow & edit relationships without a page re-load
- Growing list of 'whitelisted' sites/allowed embeds
- A bunch o' bug fixes
- Tour & videos section

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Posted by Brad

UPDATE, JUNE 2:
Personal Domains are launching in beta this week! Sign up to be one of the first to try 'em out.

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The 2.1 Update, Update

Team Virb has been fast at work on some big upgrades. The forthcoming 2.1 update focuses on features that enhance the sharing of content on Virb, within Virb and in Groups (which are getting a massive revamp too). The long awaited release of personal domains will be also part of this upgrade. Finally, mask your Virb with your own WWW. Holla.

To improve the sharing of content, we have reworked the bookmarklet, contribution pages and added (many) more sites to our official whitelist, allowing easy embeds of your favorite stuff. Images or videos can now be quickly attached to any link you share via the bookmarklet too.

Explore has been a big hit with the community. We recognize that and have some upgrades in the works; including landing pages for top Videos, Audio, Photos and more.

With over 100 updates and bug fixes, we're excited to push this update out in the next few weeks.

For you Audio and Portfolio accounts in Virbland, stay tuned... We have a wave of new features and fixes heading your way soon. Oh, and our public API is progressing nicely too.

Peace, love and sharing.

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posted by Brad

14 Comments

2 New Personal Skins: Soda Jerk and Chunk

We are super pumped to release 2 new personal skins today, which can be found in the You › Customize area of your Hub if you have a Personal account. A big reason we're excited is that they were designed by someone other than me (Stephen Hallgren and Josh Lane, respectively) and they add some much needed diversity to the styles available.

If you are photographer, band, filmmaker or any other type of profile besides a personal one, sit tight for a little longer. We've got some skins for you in the works. Follow us and we'll announce them here when they're ready to roll.

Now, let's take a closer look...

Soda Jerk by Stephen HallgrenDon't let the name fool you, this beautiful skin plays very well with others. It's big, tasty and does a really fantastic job of making your content shine. And, it's the first left-aligned skin in the rotation. Very nice.
available in 3 flavors: Chocolate Cherry, Cherry Slush and Mint Chocolate

Chunk by Joshua LaneSomehow, Josh has managed to create a skin that is big and powerful, yet smooth and graceful. If you love bold colors, serif fonts and thick borders, this will make you do the truffle shuffle.
available in 5 flavors: Blueberry, Cherry, Grape, Green Apple, Melon

So, enjoy. If you're interested in submitting a skin to us for public consumption, drop us a line. We plan on submitting lots more skins over the next few months.

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posted by Simmy

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Sneak a peek: Groups

It took us about 15 seconds after we launched the new Virb to realize how short we had fallen on the new groups strategy. We took away a vital aspect of what had made the V1 groups popular: stuff. Lots of it. Without clicking.

Thinly veiled as "comments", those comments became a breeding ground for lots of interesting content—discussions, animated gifs, YouTube videos, ghetto polls, etc. And it was all there in your face. And it was fun. We messed up real bad by compartmentalizing it all out and making it more difficult than it needed to be.

So, here's a quick peek at the new layouts that will be launching soon. Yes, group owners/moderators, you've asked for it and now you'll be getting customization abilities. I'm not going to get into all the specifics now—more on that soon...

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posted by Simmy

9 Comments

From this point forward...

Howdy gang.

Exactly 6 weeks ago we flipped the switch and pushed Virb 2 out the starting gates. Since then, we've been rather busy. Unfortunately, just not busy on the things we had planned.

We the people have been in clean-up mode. From (big) unexpected issues with legacy profile migration to a lot of smaller bugs; there's been some fixin' up to do around here. The good news is that the team is wrapping up and has big plans laid out for the coming few months.

First off, you are looking at our new Team Blog. This is the place where the we will keep you up to speed on what's going down in Virbtown. No matter how big (or small), you can expect updates on our goals, feature timelines, and maybe even a good stew recipe or two.

In fact, if you have a look at the next two posts, you will see we have now launched 2 new skins and offered up a first look at the brand new Virb Groups, which we plan on launching soon.

However, I promised myself I'd keep this short. Follow this profile to stay in the know, and enjoy the other tasty tidbits. We'll be talking soon.

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posted by Brad

5 Comments