If you tell me six months ago that I will have multiple online 'presences', I would probably laughed in your face! Seriously, I didn't think I'll need more than a blog and a photo site online. But once I discovered first Twitter then Tumblr, I realised there are multiple ways of self-expression online and each of them represents a facet of me.
This week, I signed up with VIRBº which is a more 'mature' version of MySpace. Though nowhere as big as MySpace, it definitely looks much better, more professional. But the feature (upcoming actually) that caught my eyes is that Virb allows you to import blog posts from other sites. Assuming that it works via RSS like Tumblr's own post importing feature, this means I can have my Vox posts display on Virb without a bunch of copy & paste. So what's the big deal? Well, this means Virb can potentially become my online presence 'aggregator', while all my other sites show just one aspect of me. Vox for my thoughts, Flickr for my photos, Twitter for what I am up to at the moment, and Tumblr for things I find interesting. In the future, friends and family can discover all about me without going to four, five different sites while I am not locked in to Virb for all my content.
The lack of aggregation is my primary reason for shunting MySpace (hideous colours and layout are the others). In this Web 2.0 age, it is impossible to expect user to recreate content when they are already online somewhere. Why should I copy & paste blog posts from Vox into MySpace? Why should I save my Flickr photo then upload it to MySpace so I can share it?
If Virb can generate more buzz and expands the user base then I can foresee it replacing MySpace as the social network to be in. At least for the 'mature' users.
(You can find my other web presences on the left side bar. And if you want an invite for VIRB, just leave me a comment. I have 99 invites left.)
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