Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2419

Wallpapers rule the skinning sites

There is a huge variety of cusotmization options out there now. Thousands and thousands of skins. But even now, the most common thing to be found on a "skinning" site is typically a wallpaper.

On every major Windows customization site wallpapers were the most common. Even here where they are moderated heavily.

What is interesting is that different sites have successfully catered to different groups of users.

Here are the stats (rough estimates)

Skinbase
Skins: ~3300
Walls: 2038
Other: ~200
Wall to skin ratio: 0.6 walls to every skin

WinCustomize
Skins: ~6150
Walls: 2129
Other: ~750
Wall to skin ratio: 0.34

deviantART
Skins: ~11,400
Walls: ~105,000
Other: ~433,300
Wall to skin ratio: 9.2 walls to every skin

DeskMod
Skins: ~2700
Walls: 6814
Other: ~2900
Wall to skin ratio: 2.5 walls for every skin

Dominant Skins:

deviantART: Winamp (24% of skins), WindowBlinds (7% of skins)

Skinbase: Winamp (9% of skins), WindowBlinds (9% of skins)

WinCustomize: WindowBlinds (31% of skins), DesktopX (23% of skins)

Deskmod: Winamp (25% of skins), WindowBlinds (4% of skins).

So on the 4 surveyed sites, WinAmp was the most popular skinnable program on 3 of them and WindowBlinds the second most populra on 3 of them. Not suprisingly on the 4th site (this one) WindowBlinds was #1 since this is the official site for it and DesktopX was #2 (also the official site for DesktopX).

I don't know what conclusions to draw from this other than the obvious fact that as popular as skins are, wallpapers really rule the day. I haven't done any work on looking at download counts yet to see what is the most popular with users but clearly we can see what's the most popular with artists.

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Skinning takes more effort and is more restricted (in a way) than making a wall, therefore, people make more wallpapers.

Besides that, just about every (modern) OS uses wallpapers, so it has a broader appeal than skins, for which you require specific apps.

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Snowman

Join Date 03/2001

+343

Hmm... let's say that you allready have downloaded all the walls mentioned here and you should "test" them all. Let's say reviewing them all would take like an average of 15 min per wall (applying, looking at details, etc, etc) this would take you in a region of like....

5 years..... woh... im happy that I stick to one wall at a time, the one in the Hoverdesk theme I use!!

I for one can't understand all the fuzz about these wallpaper thingies....

oki that's just my 2 cent.......

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Wallpapers are so easy to apply. For most people it is a breath of fresh air that covers the entire screen. While icon and window skins are nice, even great, they fail in comparision to a wallpaper. If the wall is bad, every thing looks bad.

I am not surprise that winamp is second. Once you figure out how to skin it, it is very easy to do. If you can get you hands on a skin generator then it is even easier. Plus winamp feeds on itself by having close to half a million different skins. It is so easy to find something you like a 1000 times over. So changing it becomes soething of a thing to do.

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WOM

Join Date 01/2002

+253

I agree with craeonics. One cost money and one is free and easy. Walls are more self expressive.

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Wallpapers are more popular, imho, because people are never satisfied with the same from one day to the next. People seem to pick a skin and stick with it, for a few days anyway, but for some reason people need to change their wallpaper neurotically often, even wasting resources on apps to change them automatically or stream them in via the internet.

I know that my non-skinner friends use 'wallpaper fashion' as a big hole to throw time into. I think to some people it is like strolling through the mall, window shopping, while sitting at your desk at work... Even with those people I know that use skins, I don't see them sitting for hour after hour downloading and discarding the way they do with wallpapers. I would bet that less than 1% of all the wallpaper downloads, even the well-done ones, stay on the desktop for more than 10 minutes.

In short, I think they are more 'popular' because they are the least satisfying over time, and because people really, really like clicking through huge databases of them... mindlessly... for hours... watching the pretty flashing light...

For this reason I think that wallpaper sections are a needless drain on most skin sites, and should be considered only when there is transfer to burn.

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WOM

Join Date 01/2002

+253

Thats quit posible bakerstreet. I change my logon about once every 2-3 weeks. My wallpaper when I change a skin. That could be 1 day to 3 weeks, just depends on how I feel about the skin.

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Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2419

One thing I found interesting was the ratios on different sites.

deviantART clearly is THE place to get a variety of skins. I also found Deskmod to have a very good selection as well. WinCustomize is, as some have observed, pretty Stardock software oriented (not surprising) in what skins are here but has the overall highest skin to wallpaper ratio (but over half of those skins are DesktopX and WindowBlinds).

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My wallpaper changes automatically every hour, so I need lots of them.

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Brad I'm going to start calling you "Statboy" hehe

and listen to the dutchy, w/ walls you can be creative and don't need to deal w/ all the other frustrations that go along w/ trying to be creative during skinning an app...

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im a wallaper maker trying to switch over to skinning, its hard to do, walls are somewhat easy, skins are really tuff. but over the last year or so i have been seeing the number of wallpapers go up i first remmeber when this site first reached 1000 walls.
Im a wallpapare maker and nothing agaist any other wall makers but i respect skinners more u guys do more work.

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Jafo

Join Date 03/2001

+1846

A 'good' wall is hard to do.

A 'bad' skin is still not 'easy' to do.

If you started off with a nominal number representing Computer users, say, 100, and started breaking that down through criteria such as 'those who alter their wallpapers'...'those who draw walls'....'those who change/use skins'...'those who skin'....by the time you got down to that last one you'd be getting into pretty darn small fractions....and therein lies the difference...

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Wallpapers are like playing the guitar, anyone can learn to play but only a few can play well. Skinning is like playing the violin, its hard to just play badly. Another thing about a skin, it has to look like something. I would be willing to bet that the vast majority of walls are abstracts.

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I guess I'm wierd because I use to change my skins every day. The wall paper tended to match the skin I was using.

When I didn't have any skins, I used to change the wall constantly especailly when I got Webshots. After a while you just get tired of changing I guess. (give or take a few months)

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All this banter about wallpaper makes me embrace the opportunity to ask again if anyone would like to make a wallpaper for the skin I am updating, Ctrl D World. I just spent the last 3 hours trying to make one and it looks like.. well you know.. My email is listed in my profile if the urge comes upon anyone.

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