WinCustomize Subscription Totals Won't Make The Goal: What Next?

With the WinCustomize Subscription Not Even At The Half Way Poin... What Now?

Published on October 25, 2005 By joetheblow In WinCustomize Talk

We have talked about this extensively on other threads, but now with the moment of truth upon us the question is what will happen to WinCustomize?

If this site was owned by a person and that crash with the server happened, it would have been a lost.

In fact, the idea that this happened only shows how much work is going on behind the scenes of this site that has to be costly and probably more than Frogboy will admit.

After reading the Does Stardock 'need' WinCustomize? thread as well as other threads on the message board/forums, the question is now what is next.

I think the answer will be more extreme that what we been talking about. Will it be a totally subscriber only site period (this would avoid the multiple account thing because even if you do that you will only get so much and view so much)?

What happens to the Wincustomize User Pages? How will un-subscribers be able to view it or download from it?

Will there be whole sections of WinCustomize off limits to outsiders?

I think the immediate response will be no downloads unless your signed in (unless its wallpapers, CursorXP or something) Not sure about the rest. I am guessing with the need for new restrictions that there will be a total site redesign for subscribers.

Personally, I think it is a sad day for all of this come November 1st 2005. The other sites just don't compare. I visited one site of the alternates to WinCusto and my browser crashed because of the pop-up attempts. Can you believe that?

I don't think many people will like the subscriber idea and will think Stardock is leaching off of artists. People will leave probably from what I read of some of the comments. I find that funny since most of the comments of 'leeching of artists' came from people who started off here and got there notoriety due to the 'leeching' of hosting their stuff, keeping it save, and organizing a community around it.

I always said that WinCustomize is a symbiosis between the artist and Stardock. On can not live as well without the other.

But with the restrictions soon to come on its way, what will happen to WinCustomize? What is next?

Comments (Page 8)

106

starkers

on Oct 29, 2005

Even if the artists/skinners don't care about being able to access other skins or have no problems paying for this access, I'm sure they do care about the number of hits their skins are getting. If few can access their skins, there will be fewer reviews, fewer downloads, a lower distrubtion, and a lack of incentive for these people to keep wasting days of their lives to create this content

Given the skinners' comments I've read, most would happily trade hit quantity for greater site support by way of increased subscriptions. These skinners create skins for the love of it, and freely share the fruits of their labours here for all to enjoy, so to suggest they are wasting their time is none too appreciative or very complimentary. It also suggests that you, I and everyone else is wasting their time visiting WC to download these skins. Although you come here to download skins, it comes across that you derive little or no value/pleasure from it. That to me is a negative/defeatist attitude, and given that you're none too willing to subscribe, either, maybe you should go back to the default 'luna/classic' style and just forget about the whole thing. Just a suggestion

I like 'free' stuff as well and happily use freebies like Firefox and Opera, etc, but as Jafo reminds us, there's a cost to someone somewhere. In the case of WC, the greater costs go to Stardock....a business, not a charity, and like any other business, it cannot afford to be bankrupted by freeloaders over-taxing its resources. Put the boot on the other foot and see how well it fits.....your business and livlihood is being leeched to the point of non-existence.

I've seen people go to the greatest of extremes for a freebie....like using $20 worth of fuel to drive miles and miles for an item worth $15 in a local store. Sorry, but you strike me as one of those types....."but it didn't cost me anything, I already had the gas."

107

Adamness

on Oct 30, 2005

This is pretty stupid. I paid for OD, why should I pay more to download skins? Skins are what the software is all about. I thought thats really what I paid for. I dont care about the software, I want the skins to make my computer look cool.

Yeah, I think it's fine to have people pay for some extra stuff like a website and the browser. But it shouldnt cost anything to download what the software is used for. That would be like paying everytime you ran a virus scan, not just for updates.

To be honest, I also think the people who work on this site are greatly exaggerating the situation here to get more people so subscribe. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems odd that at the same time they got less than half the number of subscriptions they wanted, they're talking about letting people only with those subscriptions access.

108

Bichur

on Oct 30, 2005

People need to stop thinking about 'I’m paying for skins' and start thinking about 'I'm helping support the place where authors upload their work so I can download skins'

109

Bichur

on Oct 30, 2005

But it shouldnt cost anything to download what the software is used for.

I have windvd, wmp, interactual,divx - does that mean movies are free? no.

the software is used to dress up your system. the skins here were created and uploaded for use by others. it didn't have to be. the skinners could have just as easily stuck to dressing up their own system and not shared.
windowblinds + skinstudio = all the free skins you can create. just an example.

110

Jafo

on Oct 30, 2005

Citizen Adamness just to clarify....you do not pay each time you scan for viruses...once you have the proggy, just as you do not pay each time you have your GUI skinned...once you have the proggy....

But...

Just as you pay to have updates to your scanner software to improve its currency/worth so, too 'should' you expect to pay to have newer, additional skins to apply to your GUI.

Quite a good parallel, really...

111

Bash2cool

on Oct 30, 2005

But it shouldnt cost anything to download what the software is used for.

its like having a cell phone......i bought one and i pay for it a month ok......but if you go to the internet throught your cell phone....they charge extra even though i didn't download any thing onto it yet......they even charge you for both.....downloads and internet access....

What im saying is.....if you have the amount to pay for your cell phone bill...then why don't you have enough money for a subscribtion? Besides it costs only 19.00 a year (or 2 for renewing)unlike your bill, you pay at least 29.99 or more a month.

THANK ABOUT IT!!!!!!

112

starkers

on Oct 30, 2005

That's a whole load of 'double dutch'! If you don't care about the software, then you can manage without it. That being the case, and you uninstall it, you won't have to worry about contibuting something towards the bandwidth you'd have otherwise used to download the free skins.

Shoot...I thought I'd paid for an entertainment centre, but when it was delivered it was just a piece of furniture. Then I bought a Hi.fi, Tv and DVD player, thinking I had paid for what I wanted then. Strangely enough, I still had to buy CD's and DVD's to get full value from my original purchase. Durrrr Freddy!

113

WIREDx879

on Oct 30, 2005

Hello folks!!

I purchased Stardocks Object Desktop in November 2004. I have enjoyed the program. But without Wincustomize, Object Desktop would be pretty PLAIN JANE. You don't have a lot of choices in changing skins and designs with just that program. I believe that Stardock and Wincustomize shoud intregrate. Wincustomize makes Stardock. In the future part of the purchase price for OD should pay Wincustomize. Without Wincustomize there's no Stardock. I know times are tough. I will probably will have to wait to renew on my OD. But when I am able to do so I also planned to purchase a subcription to Wincustomize. I don't think that roughly .06 a day is that big a deal to keep a good thing going. I have never gotten a virus, spyware, adware, or anything else from this site. I'd hate to see what would happen to my pc if I went to one of those other sites. It is a small price to pay for enjoyment and SAFETY. So get a grip people!!! Nothing is for free!!!

114

Threi

on Oct 30, 2005

why is everyone arguing? People who want to pay for their stuff stay here on wincustomize, and people who want the things free can go to deviantART or skinartistry or other various skinning sites. Everyone is happy, right?

115

scorpio-logic

on Oct 30, 2005

I am new to skinning. I am an OD subscriber. I download at least one WB skin a day, and doing this is so that I can learn the techniques used by great skinners like Mike Bryant, Pixstudio, Skinplant and even the newer skinners (to my knowledge) like JJ adn studio28. If I did not have the ability to download these 4 to 5 star skins, what would I be learning? As it is, I don't know how to upload skins ( I have several Sysmetrix skins ported, but no knowledge of how to get them posted and available to the rest of the community). I am currently NOT a WC subscriber, but I was planning to soon. That does not negate the argument that limited access has its benefits to the WC community.

116

Frogboy

on Oct 30, 2005

WinCustomize doesn't make Stardock. People can get skins at plenty of other sites besides WinCustomize.com.

For the money Stardock currently spends to subsidize WinCustomize it could pay for prime time television advertisements. Or heck, it could pay a couple of skin authors full time to just make skins and themes and put the results on the actual Stardock website.

You don't need 3000 skins or 3000 wallpaper or whatever to have a good customization program. The site exist to help promote a cool community of skinners, artists, developers.

Besides, the issue isn't with people who bought Object Desktop and download skins. The issue is that we have 3 million plus unique visitors visiting the site. Probably a good 500,000 of them visit the site several times per month.

The solution is going to require some statistical analysis. That is, figuring out who are visitors are in more detail. The only people who can really be expected to pay for something are the ones currently using the site a lot but aren't contributing.

You can't expect a one-time visitor to pay $20 just to download a wallpaper. What we need to do, for starters, is focus on the people who visit every day and download skins and themes but don't ever upload skins or pay for software or buy a subscription. THOSE people can be focused on.

The others, the ones who only visit the site once or twice a month or year can be targeted as well but not with subscription but via advertising.

If we could get our monthly subscription level to merely 500 per month on average and get the site to making $15,000 in advertising and try eliminate some of the bandwidth cost through either restrictions or fewer users then we could afford to bring in more people to help manage the site.

The problem the site currently faces is that it's run on such a shoe-string. A site like this hould have 3 dedicated, full-time people who do nothing but work on tihs site. deviantART (according to spyed) has something like 15 people who do nothing but work on that website as their jobs.

So the first step is to tweak things to get the site to be viable as-is. Then the next step is to look at growth opportunities.

I don't think any of the mechanisms are likely to affect people who bought Object Desktop at all. It may affect people who bought stand-alone programs a bit in the longer term (i.e. unlimited downloads only for content that corresponds for your program). But we'll see.

117

Keila

on Oct 30, 2005

scorpio-logic, go to the Sysmetrix gallery and you will under "gallery description" a button to "summit a skin".

Please remember with a port to have permissions from the original author.

118

Keila

on Oct 30, 2005

It may affect people who bought stand-alone programs a bit in the longer term (i.e. unlimited downloads only for content that corresponds for your program).

Brad, this is one of the better ideas I have heard.

119

scorpio-logic

on Oct 30, 2005

Thanks Keila, sometimes the smart ones don't see the simple things in front of them. I have sent email to pixstudio asking for permission, but have yet to recieve anything in reply. I guess until then, a screenshot would be the only thing I have available to share.

120

joetheblow

on Oct 31, 2005

It may affect people who bought stand-alone programs a bit in the longer term (i.e. unlimited downloads only for content that corresponds for your program

I like that too. If you bought Windowblinds then you have access to all WindowBlinds in the gallery, but limited downloads of DX and so forth.

I agree that Stardock spends way too much money on WinCustomize... WAY TOO MUCH... but when it comes to Object Desktop and having content to download for it it is very important. Saying 'just go to other sites' won't cut it for the end user. The convenence of going to one site far outwieghts going to 5 different ones. Plus this site has MANY members who have played around with OD who can give tips and so forth. Having a social community around your product and having social networking help build your CRM is the reason why Google, Yahoo, MSN, Nes Corp, PeopleSoft, Oracle, Friendster, MySpace (bought by News Corp) and so on spend billions of dollars to create. Stardock saying it doesn't need WinCustomize is like ignoring the begigest trend in business history. Will Stardock survice? Yeah. Will it be a muli-million dollar company? Yeah probably. Will it be worth as much without WinCustomize? No, it would be worth far less without WinCustomize.

I don't have data supporting it, but I will bet my left butt cheak that people re-subscribe to OD because of WinCustomize. Saying that you don't need 1000 of skins for a program would be a wrong move considering that different people have different tastes.

Look at DesktopX? Why make a client only DX? because people do not have the time/energy/will-power to make skins.

Finally, lets really take a look at these 'other' skin sites.

Deviant Art... Jark... need I say more?

Customize.org has more pop-ups than a teenager.

2 other mentioned skins sites crashed my browser... I don't want to neam names... YET.

Small sites that probably can't take the traffic or database weight or owner totally loses interest.

Stardock doesn't need WinCustomize, but it sure would be less actractive without it. Somewhere in the strategy of the new WinCustomize should be how to use it as a better marketing tool. I know it won't be easy, but I truely get upset sometimes when I read how WinCustomize isn't earning much when I know it can if it had a better layout, site content related to how the user interacts, and a better advertsing layout and options. Smiley Central should NOT be advertised on WinCustomize, Alienware should.

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