Shoutbox

It's just a cycle, there are times when things die down and then they pick up again.

It happened with the transition to MSN Messenger to Windows Live Messenger. There were at least 7 people making skins at that time and then all of a sudden they all disappeared leaving about 3.

Its the same thing now, it's just up to someone new to come in a keep things going. Really a person can only skin for so long before their personal lives become more involved and it becomes time to move on.

Ultimately its up to the new people to carry things onto 2010.

My position on if I will continue in 2010 is still pretty cloudy. But even if I chose not to continue I don't think it will have an effect on the skinning community as whole (asides from initial withdrawal syndrome ).

Is skinning dead? Ask me again when Messenger 2010 is close to being released.

hi. do not think the skinning die ...

I think the question would be better. because,  the  skinner stopped developing or lost interest.

I think what we need is to encourage people to make skin ...

do skin,  it's very difficult, I believe that after hours and hours and learned a little. thanks to "LuckyMe", "robert_dll" and "Zoid", forgiveness, thanks to the great help "LuckyMe", "robert_dll" and "Zoid" and managed to learn and explore new options for myself.

One way to encourage people or at least the one I found is helping to make skin, such as helped me, I created in the Hispanic forum for a guide or tutorial that interested people can learn.

but I think even lack encourage more people with skinner contests and more guides in different languages to make things easier

pd: translate.google.com sorry

That which is already dead cannot die again.

Rolando is right I believe. Skinning's best era was after Patchou added it in Plus! It was something new back then (saying it was new, I mean that it was easy for everyone to create a skin) and many people learned to skin. But the lack of time and the fact that most skinners have lost their desire to skin brought us to were we are today.

I'm still convinced the best era was during MSN Messenger 7.5. Terill's skins were nothing short of spectacular.

I am talking about skinning generally. In the era you are talking about, there were few skinners and few good skins. When Plus! skinning was released, many people started to skin and many good skins came out.

Skinning seems to peak up and down.

It may be at a low point now, but I'm sure it'll get better.

On the other hand we have Plus!5 and the new WLM to look forward to.

I'm of the opinion, (having seen 'screenshots' of the next wave of WLM), that the popularity of skinning will receive a substantial boost once the new wave is released. With such a change, interface-wise, people will no doubt want numerous graphical changes to what has been designed by Microsoft.

At the moment skinning is just following the general trend of Live Messenger and the add-ons for it. Not very much is happening, things are quiet.

Some people who have been around for a long time move on to other things, but that's nothing new. People have always disappeared when they got busy with study, work, or girlfriends. The thing is, because not much is happening there are not much new people coming in either. It as been a while since any major Messenger or Plus! release, Microsoft isn't getting testers involved like they used to, Messenger related blogs and forums not doing much posts, people preferring social networks over IM, MS changing design in a major way between 8.5 and 2009 making it hard for people to update their skins... it's all part of a massive chain reaction which has been going on for about a year now. Because not much is happening not much fresh people come in, because not much fresh people come in not much is happening.

On the other hand, looking at the raw stats it doesn't look so bad. Still millions of people using Plus!, number of active users fairly steady, certainly when you take into account the long time since the last major Plus! release (which always gives a nice boost). People are still downloading skins.

I think it will stay like this for a while, until Microsoft comes with Messenger 2010, and until Patchou has his office rolling smoothly and Yuna pushes out MP!L5. What happens after that nobody can predict yet, all depends on how the users and community react to it. But at least it's no dead end yet.

This thread has inspired me to write a short editorial on the decline of skinning development:

http://www.msgstuff.com/news/post/619-is-messenge...inning-in-decline/