Shoutbox

I pretty much stopped skinning when good work was under appreciated in favour of pictures only skins.

Willz was also paid for his skin work which is great (I can't complain I won a great wacom tablet for a skin I made) but I don't think he has the interest or personal time any more, after all there's better work out there and skins are a great training tool and portfolio filler.

But there's been a definite decline for WLM, facebook stole everyone's attentions, then facebook chat actually became stable enough to use on the site, smart phones took people away from their desktops (and  messaging services on those are now more like Instant messengers, see Blackberry Messenger, iMessage and WhatsApp sharing files from their phones, always with them, always logged on...) and skype saw a small resurgence for close friends and family use.

Personally I use Skype now to speak to my family and girlfriend long distance, it's 'simpler' for most and less bloated. I suppose with Messenger video calls, it was basically only that display picture area by default and put people off.

I stopped using messenger myself after my online contacts dwindled to 5/500 and those 5 were also on facebook or I had their mobile phones and that was more convenient for the style of relationship I have with said contact/s.

I still get beta test request for msgplus but I honestly cannot test features now with native WLM users.

sure facebook messenger now works with WLM but hey Microsoft Messenger's integrated with skype now too and facebook.... wherever i go the services all get combined anyway.

And I don't really like big cartoony pop up 'winks' taking over my chat window so msgplus skype can stay away for the moment (that and my video chats aren't worth recording)

It's a tough one, I liked my time with messenger but I think that time and community has definitely passed now.