Help Virb Win the Fight For Tastefulness on the Web

Butters the puppy says:
“I’m not even crate-trained yet and I am on Virb.”

So this is it. Pretty vs. ugly. Clean vs. cluttered. Class vs. schlock.

I’m talking about Virb. And specifically, its newly initiated battle for the hearts and minds of would-be MySpacers.

Those of us in the web industry have had to put up with a peculiar theory since the meteoric rise of MySpace: that encouraging people make absolute pig sties out of their home pages is the leading factor in the success of MySpace and MySpace-like sites. The theory goes even deeper in saying that MySpace itself succeeds because of its own awful design.

The first part of the theory is built on the notion that people, in general, like crap, and the second part of the theory is based on the idea that the younger generation eschews the appearance of order and professionalism in all sorts of design.

Those of us who refuse to believe such claims have our own claims. Specifically that MySpace instead is succeeding despite its woefully gaudy design esthetic. We hold that it was the only social network around a few years ago that did enough important things right in order to build up a huge lead, and since it’s built up that lead, it’s essentially stood still on a foundation that grows shakier by the day.

It was with great anticipation then that I began beta-testing a new site called Virb several months ago. Virb is the brainchild of a company called PureVolume and it’s absolutely everything a social network should be. It matches MySpace feature-for-feature and then some, but the great part about it is the thoughtfulness and style with which everything is presented. Under the keen eye of founder Brett Woitunski and the masterful design acumen of Ryan Sims, every single pixel of the site impresses. From the typography to the interactivity to the copywriting, it’s a jawdropping piece of work. It’s a place you’re proud to have a personal page on.

So what’s missing from Virb? Well, it just launched a couple of weeks ago, so really only one thing: your friends. And that is why — in my opinion — nobody’s been able to unseat MySpace yet. It’s extremely difficult to move entire social circles of people, no matter how great your offering is.

I could write a long review of Virb here but Brian Ford at Newsvine and many others have already done so, so instead I’ll close this entry with a plea:

Check the site out for yourself, and if you like it, be an ambassador in the name of good taste on the web. Invite your friends and let’s see if we can prove the antithesis of the schlock design theory: that better craftsmanship, better taste, and better effort will always win out in the end.

Here’s my page in case you want to kickstart your friends list with /mikeindustries.

The Old Twenty

I stopped by my local pizza joint tonight to grab a lazy dinner, and upon getting to the counter I noticed that I had five ones and one twenty.

The tab was $7.30 so the obvious choice would be to whip out the twenty, which I did. Upon holding this Jackson in my hand though, I remembered it wasn’t just any Jackson. It was a pre-1998 redesign Jackson. 1969 in fact.

I’d had this beauty in my wallet for a couple of weeks and tried not to spend it — although I knew I eventually would unless it was put into safe keeping. Such a beautiful bill… clearly superior in every way to the new rubbish.

My head told me I was the only person in the restaurant who would care about such a thing.

Inhale. Exhale. I handed the bill unceremoniously to girl behind the counter.

“Oh wow! An old twenty! I’m SO keeping this!” she said to my surprise as she plucked a modern twenty from her own wallet and made the exchange.

“I’m glad it’s going to someone who appreciates it,” I said as I watched her show it off to the other employees.

After relinquishing the twenty, I realized that it had been probably two or so years since I’d seen one… and I pay with cash a lot. I wonder what that says about the shelf-life and geographic distribution of paper currency in our country. I’d love to see some studies on this.

UPDATE: Kottke, the master of interesting cultural trivia, is up-to-date on this and has detailed info.

Introducing swfIR

I’m a rule breaker… and when other people break rules in the name of good design, I stand up and applaud.

That is why, I’m happy to point Mike Industries readers to a new creation by Messrs Dan Mall, Jon Aldinger, and Mark Huot: swfIR.

“But I already have a swfIR!”, you say. “I use it to shine my beautiful linoleum floors.”

This swfIR isn’t a disposable mop, though. It’s a new Flash replacement technique in the tradition of sIFR. While sIFR uses Flash to replace boring browser text with interesting custom-rendered Flash text, swfIR uses Flash to replace boring browser images with more interesting custom-rendered Flash images. So instead of settling for plain, rectangular jpegs and gifs, you can now apply borders, rounded corners, shadows, opacity, and more to your images… dynamically, without having to edit your images or muddy up your beautiful code.

Flash for images?

I can hear screams coming from the ivory towers where the validatorians and standardistas live. I like those screams. I live for those screams. I will sleep well tonight with thoughts of prettier imagery on the web.