Community. A group of people living together or sharing something in common, such as interests or vocations - at least according to the dictionary that came with my computer. Sounds pretty clear, but amazingly enough, this word is often the kindling for heated conversations, including discussions about skin archives and design sites. Community is what some people want more of, what a handful apparently want less of, and what a lot seem to feel is infrequent and isolated.

The benefit of a community is the intermingling of a wide variety of experience and knowledge. Small ideas grow and change with the input of others. People teach and learn. Creative thoughts get the benefit of a different perspective. Pieces add together and coalesce into something greater than any may have been alone.

The risk of a community? Simply the risk of being let down by people you've come to trust.

It's easy, then, to see why some want more and a handful want less. But is it uncommon? The foundation and fabric of community is communication. The spelling is no accident. And communication is being encouraged and practiced all over the place. The purpose behind any skin design site is ultimately communication, whether it's silent and anonymous as a by-passer quickly grabs a skin, something that has touched at least some part of them, or if it's the collaborative genesis of a new project amongst a dozen designers. The question then becomes not 'is there a community?' but rather 'what is its depth?'

Just less than a year ago, David Gorman embarked on a journey to explore these depths with a bathysphere called DeskMod. As the guiding force behind DeskMod, he is intent on seeing just how far he can pursue this seemingly elusive ideal of community.

Michael: Let's begin with a look back. Do you remember what first inspired you with the idea to set up a place like DeskMod?

Gorman: I had been working on screenshotz.net, which was a large screenshot archive that users could post their screenshots to. It was basically a gallery for desktop customization. I had always wanted to do a skin site, but at the time Custo still appeared to have a chance to come back, and Skinz was doing well. A few months later Clark Temple (xtreme) had approached me about coding a skin site for him, after his luck with Custo, it seemed like the perfect idea. I had a ton of ideas for a skin site, and he was a big name in the skinning community due to his involvement with Customize. Things quickly started to fall into place, and within about 3 weeks we had the first beta online.

Michael: It all happened pretty quickly, then. So many times, things just seem to fall into place. What is your background with computers? Did you ever imagine you'd be doing something so tied with graphic design?

Gorman: Well, as I stated before DeskMod I had worked on screenshotz.net, which did pretty well at the time. Looking farther back, I've been on the internet since 91, and have always been interested in the technology behind things. Have had small web sites in the past, had my first domain name in 1994. Seemed like a big thing then :) I got into coding about 2 years ago, and server administration around 1995 or so. I've done quite a bit of consulting work in the past for different companies, a good deal of it web work. I first got into skinning when Winamp became skinnable, and was very addicted to Customize when it first came out. When Custo started to go downhill, when it got sold, I started looking at Skinz, but it didn't seem like a perfect fit. Ever since then, I was pretty sure one day or another I'd start my own site. That's why I was so happy when xtreme made the offer.

Michael: That's a lot of web experience for a time when 97 is considered 'the old days.' :) Customize certainly did have a different feel than Skinz, and more than just cool colors versus earth tones. What do you feel are the basic differences between the big three (Custo/DM/Skinz)

Gorman: Skinz is solid, that's what a lot of users love about it. It's fast, easy to use, lots of uploads, and is never down. Makes a lot of sense, but it lacks one thing that I loved in Custo. The community. Sure, the message board is very popular, but it's just not the same. One thing that set DeskMod apart from the rest of the sites was our high level of interaction, including the chatter box and ISMs. For the first time normal skin fans could communicate easily with the author, didn't have to wait for an e-mail, and could send the message whenever they wanted to. That's what made the ISM system so perfect for a skin site. The chatter box on the other hand was great when people were bored, and just wanted to talk. I loved reloading the site every 5 minutes and chatter(ing) with whoever was there at the time. I think we did a great job of picking up where Custo left off. One thing Custo still has, that as long as the site is up will continue, is its fun ; popular message boards. Very interesting posts, and lots of them. However this seems to now be the case at Skinz.

Michael: That's a really good point. Deskmod is the only place where any casual visitor can, in effect, see the message board. So many fly through Skinz without hitting the board, or taking the trouble to download irc. Do you feel it makes it more of an insider venue? Are casual users more vocal at DM?

Gorman: Well, the people who visit DeskMod the most are the most active members. I see a lot of new users posting a message in the chatter box fairly often, but I would imagine the casual user simply downloads skins. We have seen some really good numbers in terms of users / files. It seems that about 70% of the users who have signed up, have uploaded at least one thing. This is a great number, considering we have 12,000 files ; near 8,000 users.

Michael: I don't know what Skinz' file count is, but 12,000 is very impressive. I'd be willing to bet that's much higher, also because of your variety. Have you made an active choice to be more inclusive? For example, the wide selection of wallpaper styles.

Gorman: Skinz has an equal number of uploads actually. Well, we try and cover every skinnable program there is. We do have the largest available sections for programs of any skin site, and do have a very wide selection of wallpaper categories.

Michael: You've even crossed what some might say are uncrossable boundaries, with categories not only for other x86 operating systems, but for the Mac OS as well. Are your Mac sections doing well?

Gorman: Yes, we have categories for Mac OS, BeOS, and *nix. We want to have skins for everyone, not just Windows users. The sections are all doing pretty well, good amount of skins for all operating systems.

Michael: That's good to hear, and it's a uniquely admirable decision. Some might say it could thin out the community aspect which is so important to DeskMod, but perhaps it will add strength through diversity. I've looked for a site like DeskMod, or even Skinz or Customize, for Mac OS programs, and there really aren't any others. Do you have any ideas why there are so few?

Gorman: If anything it adds strength to the community. Well, looking at the big picture, the Mac user base is much smaller then the PC user base, thus there are less sites. We are planning on launching MacMod, which would be dedicated to Mac Skins. This is a big market, we need to be the first ones there to take full advantage.

Michael: That's an exciting development! That says something very optimistic about your vision of the future for DeskMod, and for skin design in general.

Gorman: Yeah, we have some very large plans for DeskMod. Not to mention the fact DeskMod v2 is in the works.

Michael: The most recent series of changes seem to have promoted quite a growing spirit! Can you share anything about what's in store with v2?

Gorman: At the base of DeskMod v2 is ModWorks, our open source ; modular system that anyone can use on their site to build an interactive community site. It is very fast, very powerful, and very flexible. We have made a few news posts about this, and will resource parts of the code soon. The launch date is expected to be the 19th of December. We will be rewriting all of the code, and adding loads of new ; requested features. It should be quite cool.

Michael: This is really amazing. Obviously the community aspect of the internet has become a central focus for you. Will this system work with any sort of download oriented site, or is the horizon even larger than this?

Gorman: It will work from anything from a download site to a news site to a skin site :)

Michael: So this is 'on the shelf' alongside other basic web developer tools, but shapes not only content, like a Macromedia product, but function and use as well. What made you decide to go open source instead of licensing?

Gorman: The core itself is open source, and easy to install. However to actually have it do anything, you have to have plugins and a template file. The template defines how the page looks, what plugins to load and where to display them. We will distribute basic plugins, and sell others (such as the chatter box, etc.) as one of our business models. We decided to go open source with this because we love giving back to the community. We will give away a good number of the plugins as open source as well.

Michael: I have a feeling some of your plugins will become a very hot commodity. There are so many sites out there that really need some help with their user interactivity.

As you said, this is one of your business models. Many of our readers will have some knowledge of the paths you've been down recently on the business side, but many don't know the whole story. What is your view of this part of DeskMod's history?

Gorman: Very good question, and something that should be talked about. Some of this information I'm sure you've heard, other you may not have. Sometime around May or June of last year, xtreme wanted to start working on other things, so he asked me if I wanted to sell the site. At (that) point I did not want to, I was certain it had a bright future. So xtreme and I agreed on him selling his half to a little known company by the name of ByteAudio. After ByteAudio paid him a few thousand, and the deal was signed the troubles began. Although it wasn't really that bad at first, it quickly became clear there were going to be some serious issues.

First of all, their main role in things was to build up the business end. I heard lots of promising things they were going to do. The sad part is, almost none of this ever happened. Quite quickly things took a turn for the worse, they were mistreating members of the staff, and others that they had paid to do skins ; web site design for. Demanding, changing of ideas after the work had be done, etc. In addition, I never saw a dime. Haven't seen one for quite a few months.

So, they did just about nothing, besides the small link from Microsoft's WindowsMedia.com, except negative things. After having many arguments, and many long nights of yelling back and forth on the phone, I was to the end of my rope. After consulting with the members of the staff, a news post was made reporting that I was working to drop ByteAudio. Lawsuit threats came in from ByteAudio, and so did offers to buy the site. After working to try and secure funding to keep the site alive, it seemed that was just not going to happen.

So a few days back I posted the site on ebay, mainly to get some interest in it. I have found a company who I think will take proper responsibility, and run the site correctly. To clear up any confusion, the same staff (including me) will be working on the site, and bringing all of our plans to life, even though we won't own the site anymore.

Michael: What do you think ByteAudio's interest in DeskMod stemmed from?

Gorman: One of their staff members had a huge interest in skins, and quickly became a member of the community. At first he had approached me about doing a co-brand of DeskMod for them, but when they bought xtreme's half, they decided to just keep things as they were. They have an audio site, and felt a skin site would fit in well.

Michael: That seems to make sense from their perspective I suppose. I'm sure winamp.com gets most of their hits from skin shoppers. Were you able to take some positive things away from the experience?

Gorman: Well, we do have a link on windowsmedia.com because of them, but so does Skinz. I lost money ; have huge bills due to them. So no, can't really say anything positive.

Michael: I'm sorry to hear that. It's sometimes those of us that most strive for good community interaction that take the brunt of community abuse. It sounds like you've survived and become stronger for it though, to paraphrase Nietzsche. This leads into a question about the future of skin design itself. Do you think the Microsoft / Skinwerkz model will become more pervasive?

Gorman: Yep, is very true. Well, I do think sooner or later, especially now with Microsoft having a built in WindowBlinds sort of program with the next version of Windows, and having WMP7 skinnable. However I don't think it is time yet to start going up to companies and asking them if they want a skin. That's why Skinwerkz' success will be limited. However I think in the coming years it will be a big business. Just not now.

Michael: It's definitely in its infancy. Skinners themselves seem kind of split between hobby and profession. Some are actually quite opposed to commercialization. Do you think that's unrealistic?

Gorman: Mm, I'm kind of split as well. On one side I think skinners should be able to make money at something they enjoy, and I'm all for that. On the other hand, if a user wishes to only do skins for themselves, and for free, I can totally understand that. I highly appreciate all forms of art, and artists, so if that is how they feel, that's fine.

Michael: The whole situation is reminiscent of the music industry in some ways. Right now, they're dealing with the same questions, with musicians choosing to post music on the net for free, or to sell it through a widening variety of means.

Microsoft is coming into this later than most. Do you think they appreciate what's happened up to this point?

Gorman: I've talked directly with some of the WMP7 devs, and yes, they really do. They have researched skins, the community, etc. a great deal, and have really come up with the best format I've seen. They respect the community, and wish to promote it. Not sure if the people higher up feel the same, but that's how the dev. team feels :)

Michael: The larger Microsoft model is to have full time personnel augmented by short-term contract people. Is this their model for skin design as well?

Gorman: Yes, basically it is.

Michael: Hopefully I can inquire about this right from the source at some point, but do you have any indication of how much interplay and overlap there is between the wmp7 team and the Windows GUI designers?

Gorman: Not really sure, however I would think that the people who designed the skinning format ; engine for wmp7 are doing so for whistler (windows.NET 1.0) as well.

Michael: Exciting work :) Working with skin and GUI designers so closely, has it encouraged you to make skins yourself?

Gorman: Ah, I'm no artist really. Any creations in photoshop stay on my hard drive for the most part :) But yes, many a time have I said "geeze, would I love to have that user's talent."

Michael: There really are some amazingly talented people doing this. Being able to see such a wide range of submissions, have you developed any personal favorites? What does your desktop look like?

Gorman: I love doodle's work, bronze's, misery's, and many many others .. there is so much talent around DeskMod, it's hard to pick my favorites :) I use one of doodle's Sonique skins, Geoshell, and the aqua WindowBlinds theme.

Michael: I just read today that bronze is retiring indefinitely for personal reasons. He'll be well missed.

Gorman: Yes, no question about it. I was very sad to hear that.

Michael: It's interesting that you mention aqua as one of your personal choices. Was DeskMod involved in the Apple 'look and feel' hubbub at the beginning of the year?

Gorman: Nope, we were too small at that point for Apple to bother with. I am a fan of the look though :)

Michael: It's one of the most popular and recurrent looks for Windows, yet I've only seen one Kaleidoscope scheme that mimicked the Microsoft look.

Gorman: Well, OSX certainly looks better then Windows at this point, so its no wonder why. However I think as Whistler comes out, and future versions of Windows, you will see more MS themes for the Mac.

Michael: The Whistler look is a big improvement, and I think the changes are largely due to the effect of the skinning community. I know a lot of the Mac community feels some resentment based on the Mac's long history of GUI customization compared to the relatively recent Windows developments. What are your feelings about the Mac OS?

Gorman: Whistler is a huge improvement, and Windows 2002 will be an even larger one. Windows 2002 will be sort of like Aqua for OSX you could say. I do think Microsoft is catching on to the whole skins idea, and really liking what it can do. I think Apple always likes to think big, they try and make things as grand as they can. So they figured why not make the OS look cool too, since the hardware already does. I think they've done a good job with OSX, I'm excited especially about the BSD back end of it. I think once they work out the bugs it'll be a great operating system.

Michael: I'm exited about OSX as well, but I've decided to wait for the final release to install it. In some ways, its functionality seems to attempt a combination of Mac OS9 and Windows, or, in some cases the old Lisa GUI environment.

You told us above that you're not an artist. What puts the food on your table?

Gorman: Yep, I am excited as well.

Well, fortunately I've had some money saved up from pre-DeskMod jobs, so I've been kind of living off that waiting for DeskMod to grow and make a profit. Working on some new things (MusicMod), which should bring in a larger amount of revenues more quickly.

Michael: It's kind of refreshing somehow to hear of someone putting everything they have into an online project. It must have been a daunting decision when you left your last 'day job.'

Gorman: It sure was, had a nice job working for an ISP before. But this has been my true love, so I'll do whatever I can to make things work out.

Michael: A lot of people who hope for an all freeware internet aren't taking situations like yours into account, I don't think. Do you think we'll see less freeware in the future?

Gorman: Mm, I don't think we'll see less - I think people will find alternative ways to distribute programs ; make money off of them. Such as web based office suites supported by ads.

Michael: For my last couple questions, I've been looking back over our discussion, and thinking about the history of DeskMod. In many ways it seems to be a story of turning difficult situations into successes, from the demise of Customize to the growth after ByteAudio's departure. On a small scale, one of the critics' comments about DeskMod has always been speed and sorting irregularities. Do you think the new technologies coming from you will silence these critics?

Gorman: For sure. Speed won't be an issue anymore, and all sorting issues ; bother bugs will be worked out.

Michael: That's great news :) And on a larger scale, what do you think the future holds for DeskMod in general?

Gorman: We'll just keep going at a stronger rate, building the community, and innovating like we have been doing for the past year. However I will also be working on MusicMod a good deal.

Michael: Is MusicMod an mp3 search or swapping engine?

Gorman: It does an mp3 search (powered by Napster/Scour/Songspy), but that is only a small part of it. It is a very large project, with a staff of near 40 people. However it will not distract from my work with DeskMod. It should be launched around the 1st of November.

Michael: We'll have to celebrate inaugurations together - that's the expected date of our first issue :)

What would the effect of a negative decision on Napster be to your project?

Gorman: It won't effect it at all really, as Scour ; Songspy together form a larger collection of music than about 10 Napster servers combined. However I'd like to include Napster, but if worse comes to worse, it won't be an issue. Again, the mp3 search is a small function of the site though.

Michael: What else will the site do for users?

Gorman: Can't really go into specifics yet, but it will be a wealth of information, targeted towards the person's interest ; location (tour dates for example will be targeted to their location). It will have the community features of DeskMod. We are doing things in a very unique way, unlike anything that has been done before.

Michael: That sounds very exciting! I can only imagine where this new step will take you, but it sounds very big. The audience for internet based music technology is larger than many have imagined. Congratulations!

It's been great talking with you, and I'm looking forward to the new developments. Is there anything else you'd like to add?

Gorman: Thanks! Great talking you, I wish you the best of luck with things as well.

I think I've pretty much covered all ground, but would like to add a quick thanks for holding this interview :)

Michael: My pleasure!

10/14/00