Virb

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

--

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.

26 Comments

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.

--

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.

-

posted by Simmy

8 Comments

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...

-

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.

-

posted by Brad

5 Comments