Hooves on the Turf

Move to virb.com and there’ll come a day when we’ll give ourselves to better things much more bravely! We’ll stand up for quality by shunning that is trash, risking our 100-something MySpace friends, oh what a sacrifice!, but we’ll say goodbye to the clutter they think we’re worth and rise for a solid alternative that sheds a flattering light on the kind of things we’re willing to roll with (and the kind of things we’re not!).

So. I’m proposing a MySpace exit plan! But first I must rile you up: MySpace champion Lilly Allen’s already got a virb page, Feist is featuring a virb exclusive webisode, and you’ll find other artists like Modest Mouse, Architecture in Helsinki, YACHT, Amy Winehouse.

Here I include a video from Lily’s page to show off the video quality.

[virb http://www.virb.com/external/video/877/xmtJAy0eMPA8YAZKDq0weBoD5Ucg0Nf2]

And second I must tell you the good things about virb, so good that YACHT started plugging it without being paid to do so (if they didn’t pay YACHT, they’re certainly not paying me), so much better than MySpace (what a poor site to refer to as a standard!) that I’m going to leave out a bunch of things I’m sure, but here are some that come immediately to mind:

• A sane, reasonable interface that works at a perfectly sane, reasonable speed (as of now, anyway, though I don’t think MySpace ever worked smoothly).
• The site’s got a crisp design to begin with, but Basic and Advanced modes allow impressive control over your page layout. It took me 15 minutes to customize my page. And, if someone’s page looks like a hell-hole, you can turn their customization off in the interest of your migrane-free head.
• You can set a certain number of your most recent photos from Flickr to show up on your profile. You’ll possibly no longer need last.fm, for there’s an iTunes plugin in place, which keeps track of your listening habits and displays the preferred chart.
• If you’ve got a personal account, music on your page can be a playlist, as opposed to the one-song limit on MySpace, and if you’ve got a band account: first, the player is sweet and smooth; second: you can upload up to 30 songs; third: you can stream songs by playlist or by album. If you’ve got tour dates they show up in the calendars of those who’ve befriended you.
• virb’s offering videos in crisp quality (evidence above), and if you’re into it, there’s a little bulb by the player on its individual video page, the clicking of which dims the entire page but the video.
• Photo quality is awesome, so all your good looking friends look especially good. On that note, virb staff Rubin’s got a photo lit and shot at least 20 times better than MySpace Tom’s. Plus, he doesn’t show up as your default friend.
• You’ve got your Top Friends, but you can also randomize the listing, and customize it otherwise. You can divide them into categories (such as “bands” and “neighbors” and “haters”), as you can do with comments.
• According to virb staff Rubin, plenty more features are being added: RSS import for your blog, the ability to syndicate all your virb content to other sites, sub-domains for users on virb.com, different kinds of layouts for different kinds of creatives (Photographer, Filmmaker and such) and so on. I asked Rubin, Did you know YACHT was plugging virb? “Yacht is amazing. Such a nice guy. He found this place and he’s been spreading the word. A huge surge of french people too. Teki Latex, Surkin, the whole Institubes label, etc… Pretty awesome.”

Here’s the proposed exit plan: Open your virb account now, tell your MySpace friends about your exit strategy, start inviting them to virb, post a MySpace bulletin on June 30 announcing the death of your MySpace account, and this final death will occur on July 29, 2007, which happens to be a Sunday so we know you and your friends will be home.

If you’re ready to check it out: Brooklyn’s the Comas is featuring a full album stream on their page! Or, there’s always Lily Allen, who’s already earned herself 1172 friends.

But yes, I do know, the mess is what we love about MySpace- the not-taking-yourself-seriously. But, if you want to look pretty, come over.