The perfect way to find skins... maybe...

This is the problem (how i see it):
The fall in adds are making www sites to crash starting with high bandwidth ones, like skining sites (Skinz, Deskmod, Customize), so the real problem is only one:
Internet sites arent generation enough cash to pay the bills.
A big problem... i was thinking yesterday about this, and got this idea:
Why does sites are falling like this?, i will be available to download skinz in the future?, and the most important of them: Why can i download MP3 and Videos so easly and always i want?, i have dowloaded movies that are more or less 400mb long... without any problems and i always find what i want where always go, but why?, thats easy to answer, because i do it with different kind of Nap software (specialy WinMX), the servers i connect are usually very low bandwith, im sure some of them are cable servers, but since all whats done is the login, logout and search ist enough, the file transfer is user-user based, thats why download movies or mp3 is so easy... so...
Why not to make a napskin?, a nap based prog that find skins that users have and let share them... off course could be difficult to make a top 10, and preview skins, but can be done in the server, isnt too much badwith anyway, maybe stardock could make a prog like this one and sell it like windowblinds or inside object desktop... just an idea

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Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2419

Because programs like Napster are only good for stealing er I mean finding songs that you already know about.

But in skinning, it's the newest skins that are often the best and people wouldn't know to search on them. Skin sites can also help filter out the crap. It may not seem like it sometiems but a lot of skins get moderated (rips mainly) that are never seen.

Peer stuff works best when you already know what you're looking for.

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You could set some filters like only filenames with etc file size can be shared, this list of "can be shared" will be in the server and a skin only can be added to the list when sended for moderation, this way maybe a start page like the napster one could informate to the ppl the newer and best skinz added to the list, also you could set up a server user of max 20 downloads at time to promote the new skinz and while the time pass delete the old one who only could be shared user-user way, that is the point of all the mess... is not about make a nap for skinz, but something like it that works for skinz... but maybe is just a stupid idea...

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Hold on Froggy, Napster has (so I've seen, don't use it myself (honestly)) a "show list" kind of option, where you can see all the songs available on that particular machine. You could do it that way to with skins and then you would also see the new skins, even if you didn't know their name.

On the other hand, a lot of downloads are based on the impression people get from looking at a screenshot of the skin. That could be an issue for the Napster idea.

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yeah, this is a visual medium. would you download any piece of visual art sheerly by filename?
would the word "Sputnik" express to you the beauty that is Treetogs work?

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maybe the this nap based prog could serch something like:

if the files name is:
X23pwq.wba

it search in the same path:
X23pwq_ObectNap_screenshots.jpg

if the user dont have the preview then the prog will complain every time it runs asking to find them or make them.
Also when somebody download a skin also (secretly) download the screenshot so if someone looks in your computer the preview will be available. I know this can be do... i think i could do it, isnt very difficult, NAP is easy, you can even use winsock in VB...

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Hey, why not have like a rating? like five stars, four stars, and it could all be done by the users. The people who sumbit the skin can't rate it. That would be cool.

I don't really use windowblinds because i'm affraid of what it might do to the comp.

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it won't do anything untoward to your computer..

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skins browser basically did something LIKE you are talking about but since it was getting it's skins from skinz.org it's pretty useless.

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Regaurding this issue, I posted a thread on revisiting the Skinz Browser concept and this is what Brad had to say:

Frogboy - This is something we are very interested in doing. We were just talking about this. Just don't have any developer resources currently available to put onto such a project.

If someone is interested in doing one -- a good one, we might be able to make some arrangements for them to do so. Email me if interested (bwardell@stardock.com).

------------------------------------
Any programmers out there?

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