[OT] VIRB - any other users feeling royally shafted?

ollyb303 · Post by **ollyb303** » Mon Feb 23, 2009 12:02 pm

So any of you who use virb (as I have been doing for some time) feel like you've been totally screwed by their recent update?

I spent a long time creating my page there and getting it just how I wanted it, then they update and lose all my hard work. Yes they promised to import legacy profiles, but this hasn't worked with mine, they've lost my images and custom modules and all my hard work is basically down the pan.

So I figure I'll start from scratch, but sometimes my changes are saved, sometimes not and half the time the customisation section of the site just isn't working at all. I've just about managed to get my page looking half decent again, but now I can't reads track names or see album images in my music player.

I've submitted numerous bug reports to them and they just come back telling me there isn't a problem. Dead handy.

I appreciate it's a new system, but I really think this should've been tested better/beta'd thoroughly before forcing us all to use a system that doesn't really work very well.

/rant over, got it off my chest at last.

Anyone know of a decent alternative to virb? (gutted I'm even typing htis as I loved it before)

ollyb303 · Post by **ollyb303** » Mon Feb 23, 2009 3:58 pm

LOL.

Guess it's just me then!

Bugger.

Khazul · Post by **Khazul** » Mon Feb 23, 2009 4:08 pm

Dont know virb, LOL they really did a job on your page - its completely blank

Ive started to use sound cloud, mainly because I like the way the tracks are displayed and you can do timed comments which make it good for getting feedback.

Martyn · Post by **Martyn** » Mon Feb 23, 2009 8:58 pm

They recon that they'll get it all back online soon, so I'd guess it's all backed up.

I've taken it as an opportunity to redesign mine, I've just done a temporary thing with it until it's all properly working again and then I'm going to try and learn some css to make it look a bit better.

I really like Virb, I say give em a chance, it's not an easy task to move all that data to a new system without a few hiccups. I don't imagine that they have as much financial backing as Myspace either so it's probably caused the poor sods a few sleepless nights.

We should give Virb as much support as possible, it's got it's heart in the right place.

Blip the Kid · Post by **Blip the Kid** » Mon Feb 23, 2009 9:25 pm

I would agree with what Martyn said. I say give them a chance to work out the bugs. I know i'd rather wait for Virb then sign up for Myspace.

aqua_tek · Post by **aqua_tek** » Mon Feb 23, 2009 9:27 pm

I haven't been very diligent in keeping my VIRB account up to date. Been ages since I logged on, actually.

Having so many music profiles (myspace, soundcloud, virb, fairtilizer, etc) can be extremely time consuming. Usually one or two will fall through the cracks.

beats me · Post by **beats me** » Mon Feb 23, 2009 9:48 pm

I think virb is the best site to point people to. It looks clean and professional with very little effort and allows high quality mp3s, although I don't know what this format change thing is yet.

Myspace is an embarrassment but necessary and gets the most traffic.

Soundcloud is masturbation for other music producer geeks who get all wet over a displayed waveform. It's the Twitter of music sites and looks like you could book a plane flight and hotel from it.

All others are even more geeky and obscure.

bytheriver · Post by **bytheriver** » Mon Feb 23, 2009 10:16 pm

On a totally offtopic note, I live near Bristol!

Not been out there since I moved down here though since its a 30 min drive and, well, driving home is a pain in the backside.

Be good to catch you when your playing somewhere round here OB1!

Gert-Lush!

ollyb303 · Post by **ollyb303** » Tue Feb 24, 2009 8:48 am

Blip the Kid wrote:I would agree with what Martyn said. I say give them a chance to work out the bugs. I know i'd rather wait for Virb then sign up for Myspace.

Fair play. I actually moved over to Virb from Myspace because I thought it looked fantastic and Myspace is just awful isn't it?

Maybe I'm being a little impatient. No scratch that, I am being a little impatient.

@beat me - def. with you there.

@Martyn - Yeah, I'm staying!

@bytheriver - I'll post in the Local forum next time I've got a decent gig. Bit sparse at the moment as 3 of the promoters I was playing for have been bitten by the economic downturn and gone out of business for a while

This is a big reason I'm so gutted about the site I use to promote myself!

Martyn · Post by **Martyn** » Tue Feb 24, 2009 9:27 am

@ ollyb303

Submit a bug report to them. I had two tunes corrupt and my stats are going in reverse so I filled in a bug report and they got straight back to me apologising and saying that they're on it and all will be fixed.

As far as the player is concerned, it all seems to be working ok, mine is a very simple page though, I can understand frustration if you'd put a lot of work in. We'll have to see how it all goes.

If the move means that they're going to push for more publicity and increase the features I'm all for it. Virb seems to have gone a bit quiet of late which is a shame, it's way better than MySpace and Soundcloud is a different thing entirely.

8O · Post by 8O » Tue Feb 24, 2009 10:12 am

Your site appears fine to me - album artwork gets correctly selected depending on the playing track. I notices that virb recently added a new domain which I had to enable in Firefox / noscript, but after that it was running fine again...

ollyb303 · Post by **ollyb303** » Tue Feb 24, 2009 10:30 am

@Martyn - yeah, I've submitted several bug reports regarding the player - only had a reply to one so far, but here's hoping.

My player is now working and my album art has started to work in the last 24 hours.

Hopefully I'll be able to read track names soon! They're currently invisible!

rewind · Post by **rewind** » Tue Feb 24, 2009 4:44 pm

I wouldn't say I was gutted with the new virb, but mildly pissed off. Even though I didn't spend a lot of time on my old site, it still looked a lot better than it does now. Thanks Virb! Also I'm not too chuffed at their decision to try and clone facebook... that's something I don't need, and surely won't work in terms of bringing in the punters - after all facebook already exists!

Anyway, if you are looking for alternatives you could try http://bandcamp.com i just started messing around with them, and it looks promising, though it seems less flexible than the old virb.

Nick the Zombie · Post by **Nick the Zombie** » Tue Feb 24, 2009 9:29 pm

Bah, this is always an unfortunate thing to happen with a growing community like Virb, but I see it happen a lot. I think they'll likely get it sorted soon enough, though.