Virb was a website owned by Media Temple that let individuals and businesses create their own websites. Users added web content using simple tools and then customized the design of their site using built-in options or with CSS and

HTML Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It defines the content and structure of web content. It is often assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets ( ...

. They could also connect to networking websites such as

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

History

After the launch of

PureVolume PureVolume (formerly Unborn Media) was a website for uploading and streaming of music files, the first independently run of its type. PureVolume was created by Unborn Media, Inc; Mitchell Pavao; Brett Woitunski; and Nate Hudson, all from the Univer ...

in 2003, Unborn Media attempted to mimic the website's success by launching Virb, where PureVolume focused primarily on music, Virb would focus on more social features. Virb was launched, as an invite-only beta form in 2006, and was publicly launched in March 2007. Virb was highly praised in 2007 by the

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for its unique design, customisation, and innovative features, such as iTunes integration. Virb was widely heralded as the possible successor to

MySpace Myspace (formerly stylized as MySpace, currently myspace; and sometimes my␣, with an elongated Whitespace character#Substitute images, open box symbol) is a social networking service based in the United States. Launched on August 1, 2003, it w ...

, due to the site's similar layout and functionality. Virb failed to attract a wider audience, and by the end of 2007,

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

passed both Virb and MySpace in terms of

monthly active users Active users is a software performance metric that is commonly used to measure the level of engagement for a particular software product or object, by quantifying the number of active interactions from users or visitors within a relevant range ...

. In early 2008, Virb was listed as one of the biggest technology disappointments of 2007 by

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, among other websites, due to its focus on social networking basics, and lack of innovative features. The web hosting company Media Temple purchased it in June 2008, despite its failure, and in August 2010 relaunched as a do-it-yourself website builder. Smith stated that the "core desire wasn't ever to build and run a social network.

hey Hey, HEY, or Hey! may refer to: Music * Hey (band), a Polish rock band Albums * ''Hey'' (Andreas Bourani album) or the title song (see below), 2014 * ''Hey!'' (Julio Iglesias album) or the title song, 1980 * ''Hey!'' (Jullie album) or the ...

wanted to build this really cool niche area for the people MySpace didn't really work for." In July 2012, Virb announced that it had officially joined the

Media Temple Media Temple was a website hosting and cloud hosting provider, which focused on web designers, developers and creative agencies. The company was founded in 1998 by Thomas Anthony, Demian Sellfors and John Carey. It was headquartered in Los Ange ...

family of products, promising new features, more dedicated customer support, and better system monitoring. In 2014, GoDaddy.com acquired Media Temple and its subsidiaries, including Virb. Soon after, changing leadership priorities led most of the Virb development team to depart, though GoDaddy kept a small skeleton crew to maintain existing functionality and keep the site running. GoDaddy shut down Virb in June 2020 without warning its customers, leaving many without migration plans or backups of their work. The Virb.com homepage left only a eulogy message, reading "After 10 years proudly helping customers like you with Virb, we have made the difficult decision to discontinue the platform."

References

External links

* {{official website, http://www.virb.com Defunct social networking services Blog hosting services 2008 mergers and acquisitions