Stardock is a company that makes desktop extensions. Most notably it makes WindowBlinds, IconPackager, DesktopX, WinStyles, and ObjectBar. It doesn't make skins for these programs though.

WindowBlinds and the skin sites grew up together. The first public build of WindowBlinds showed up in December of 1998. Back then, there were 7 sections on Customize.org (the first skin site) and they were all for MP3 players. And when Skinz.org launched, it started with 13 sections, one of which was WindowBlinds.

In short, the symbiosis between Stardock, maker of skinnable software, and skin sites, distributor of actual skins, was there at the beginning (of course, some revisionist histories have tried to act as if companies like Stardock crashed "the scene" but that's another story).

Unfortunately, the Dot-Com crash in 2000 destroyed the balance. These skin sites survived on banner ad revenue. And by February of 2001, Customize.org and Skinz.org were gone. And with them, at the time, a huge inventory of skins.

In a hurry, Stardock decided to throw up a site to providce a place for skin authors and users to find skins. A site that users could count on staying up for the long haul. The longer term goal was for the site to also serve as a portal. A place to direct users to other customization sites.

To run the site, Stardock recruited Alexandrie, a top skinner, l0c, one of the admins from the late Skinz.org, and Shoggot, another admin at skinz.org.

To encourage people to visit other sites, since Stardock didn't want to get into the skin site business at the time, a strict limit on the # of sections was placed. Only very popular apps would have sections and people who wanted to get more skins would go to the other sites.

By March 25th, the site was thrown together and launched (with only a couple weeks of work). Designed by Alexandrie and the message board designed by l0c, with many philosophies taken from Shoggot's views on how to run a site, WinCustomize was born. The site was fairly netural in how it was run. Though it Stardock was well represented (Migelleto from Teknidermy picked the apps that got the most downloads on skinz.org and Stardock apps were at the top), the site was generally neutral in how it was run.

Over time, the admins changed. Shoggot found he just didn't have enough time then to be actively part of the site and l0c moved on to pursue other things. That's when T-man and myself became much more actively involved. So it changed to being Alexandrie, T-man and me. And both of us being Stardock employees definitely began to change the site's overall feel.

Since T-man was doing the coding, it meant that how long things took to code now mattered (since the site was no longer being developed by "volunteers"). This meant that the portal strategy was gone because of the work it would take to create such a thing. It also gave the site a most definite Stardock feel to it because, well, we work for Stardock and so we're more familiar with Stardock's software.

But WinCustomize continued to grow even though the early days were rough. Many of the old guard "skinnerz" objected to a skin site run by a software company (skin sites run by huge media conglomerates is okay apparently though ).

But inevitably, it created a kind of "split" that continues today. The split is almost definitely along age lines. The average user on WinCustomize is over 21 years old whereas it tends to be under 21 years on other sites. The types of topics discussed here were different from what were found on other such sites.

Over the months, the traffic increased. 60,000 uniques per month, 100,000 uniques, 300,000 uniques, 500,000 uniques and today around 900,000 uniques per month.

The statistical tracking of WinCustomize had another effect - it really brought home just how big time skinning had become. Debates over what is the "skinning community" became heated. Was "the community" made up of 50 to 100 regulars? Or the 50,000 people who visit these sites on a near daily basis? Or maybe the 5,000 people who visit the site several times per day?

As WinCustomize reached its first birthday, it's become at ease with what it is. And ironically, the impetus for why it was created is gone - customize.org and skinz.org have both returned and other great sites like deskmod, skinbase, lotsofskins, razortart, and more are all up and all very popular.

Moreover, one big change from the "old days" is that the skin sites not only get along with each other but actively collaborate on interwebsite events like the GUI Olympics. Today's skinning community isn't competitive amongst itself (and when it is, it's very friendly). It's created an atmosphere of cooperation amongst users "loyal" to the site that few could scarcely imagine two years ago. It's a great thing.

As we look forward to year 2, there's lots of things planned. Under the covers, WinCustomize will be heavily modified to make it run much MUCH faster than it does today. It will slowly be integrated into Stardock.net so that users can gain various free services from it that will enhance their on-line experience. New sections will be added while the site itself is cleaned to display less clutter on the home page. And tutorials and documents to get people started will be created to help introduce the millions of new users coming to this site this year to the coolness of PC customization.

And lastly, this site simply wouldn't be possible without the daily help of volunteers who go through the thousands of submissions we receive. Without Jafo and Paxx and Treetog and DavidK and Migeletto and Alexandrie and Boxxi not to mention all the regulars who visit and imprint their personalities on this site. Thank you so much for all your help in creating a truly excellent community that I am honored to be part of.

We look forward to another great year!