Skin Spy
Monday, May 3, 2004 by Frogboy | Discussion: WinCustomize Talk
I want to make a program that spies on you.
That's right. Spies.
But how?
I want us (all of us) to be able to get a list of the most popular skins by USE. No downloads. Not impressions. Not mentions. What skins are people actually using.
So this program would look at what skins and themes you're using and return that data to a central server and then those who ran it would have access to the page that lists them so we can download them. Afterall, the best skins for many are probably the ones people are actually running.
We used to have something like this built into WindowBlinds but it was a pain and some people complained that it was spying (which is was). Obviously paranoid people wouldn't want to run this and we could expand it to support as many apps as peple wanted. Most popular DesktopX theme? Most popular icon package? Most popular Winamp skin? Most popular Litestep theme, whatever.
We could even have it list most popular programs. so how popular is Samurize vs. Litestep vs. hoverdesk vs. whatever. The important thing is that people would be able to find new emerging customization programs that are getting more popular and know where to download them.
So first off, what kinds of features that those of you who might want to run something like this would want besides what I mentioned?
Secondly, obviously some people wouldn't want this kidn of program since it does return info about your computer (personally I don't care if people know what skin I'm using I make screenshots) but how many of you think this sort of thing would be neat?
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Reply #22 Tuesday, May 4, 2004 10:30 AM
Not that I mind at all. I've got nothing to hide
Reply #23 Tuesday, May 4, 2004 10:59 AM
This would be an individual program. It wouldn't be bundled with anything.
The whole point of it would be to provide users with access to the most popular skins and skinning programs based on use.
It's essentially Alexa but for skins. I want to call it SkinSpy so that there's no misunderstanding about how it works.
Opt-in/Opt-out doesn't apply here. The only thing the program would do is retrieve this stuff.
Users would have the ability to uncheck what types of skins and apps it monitors but they would only have access to the popularity lists of the things they've checked (i.e. if you don't contribute to the data you can't use it).
Reply #24 Tuesday, May 4, 2004 11:44 AM
Reply #25 Tuesday, May 4, 2004 12:46 PM
Rarely do I run the "flavor of the week"
Reply #26 Tuesday, May 4, 2004 3:33 PM
Why is it that people who don't want to use something feel the need to tell the rest of us that we shouldn't use it.
Some of us don't care. We don't care if people know what skins we use because we want to know what skins people are using so that we can easily find stuff that is good.
If you think it's a bad idea, that's nice. Go away. Let those of us who aren't paranoid figure out what features we want to have in such a program.
Reply #27 Tuesday, May 4, 2004 4:07 PM
The rating system here probably does a pretty good job of getting feedback, but it does have its limitations that a program like this could overcome. Imagine knowing not only which themes I used, but how long I used them for? I might use some of them a few times a month, but there are others that might be racking up 90% of my usage time. That would be an interesting statistic, I think.
I wonder if it could be sold in the same vein as the Neilsen ratings. There are a bunch of people that willingly offer to have their TV viewing habits recorded and don''t mind any ''privacy invasion'' issues. Seems like this is an analog in the computer world.
[Message Edited]
Reply #28 Tuesday, May 4, 2004 4:15 PM
A couple of folks have suggested that current sensitivity (seems to me Joe User has a blog on this) to spyware might indicate a rash of negativity arising from SkinSpy. Logic doesn't apply when paranoia strikes. Your company,your choice.
Reply #30 Tuesday, May 4, 2004 4:57 PM
, but in reality he's right. Brad's using this thread to find what features people who would want to use this type of program would want, not whether or not anyone wants this type of program. So all commentary, other than about features, including my post here and my previous post have nothing really to do with this thread. ....and now I'll go away 
Brad...Thanks for the clarification
Reply #31 Tuesday, May 4, 2004 5:51 PM
I got chewed up ripped up spit out shat out and spun around on an unknown finger.....forgive the 'paranoia' but...
I don't have a whole lot of extra system resource left to run a program...but if you could guarantee the safety of it...(that somewhere down the line it wouldn't cause me any more grief) I'd be more than happy to oblige.
No harm intended with the opinion....and yes I trust Stardock and Wincustomize and the quality products that I have purchased...and the service I've gotten to support it...and I Thank You for that....
*sigh
Reply #32 Tuesday, May 4, 2004 5:55 PM
sorry xymatix, just saw your post. my bad
[Message Edited]
Reply #34 Tuesday, May 4, 2004 6:35 PM
50 people are using this xxx blind, 30 people are using this xxx wall, etc, etc?
or
50 people are using blinds from xxxx Author, 30 people are using walls from xxx author, etc, etc?
Just currious.
Reply #35 Tuesday, May 4, 2004 6:45 PM
I see no cause for concern with your proposal. Stardock already has been entrusted with my name, address, credit card number, etc. And if you seriously wanted to bundle spyware onto my system, you have had ample opportunity to do so. The spyware that troubles me is the kind that attempts to sneak on to my system, seriously invade my privacy, steal my resources, and then clings tenaciously to my system when I try to remove it.
My only question about this has been touched on by Xymantix, and that is what type of data will be collected. Knowing what skins are being used at a time of login seems a bit lax to me, and the data would probably be more useful if you somehow could monitor uptime for skins, and send periodic summary reports. It might even be kind of neat if it could collect a user log SO I myself would be able to look back and see what skins I''ve used most or even those I''ve not used at all that I might want to archive and remove.
Another thought occurred to me, as some others mentioned here, how will you collect data on unpublished skins in use? For example, I tweak almost every skin I download and save it under a different name (Original name X2, ___X3, etc) so as to keep the original skin intact for reference purposes. And even though some of those "tweaks" are fairly major, in my mind, they are still the work of the original artist. But should they be counted or even can they be counted? I also have a number of skins I''m creating from scratch that are loaded on a regular basis. How would you take into account those kind of things, or do you think it would even matter?
At any rate, those are the kind of questions in my mind, but if you want a yea or nay, then my answer is that I would support this program.
[Message Edited]
Reply #36 Tuesday, May 4, 2004 7:25 PM
| Another thought occurred to me, as some others mentioned here, how will you collect data on unpublished skins in use? For example, I tweak almost every skin I download and save it under a different name (Original name X2, ___X3, etc) so as to keep the original skin intact for reference purposes. And even though some of those "tweaks" are fairly major, in my mind, they are still the work of the original artist. But should they be counted or even can they be counted? I also have a number of skins I'm creating from scratch that are loaded on a regular basis. How would you take into account those kind of things, or do you think it would even matter |
I think this is where the ability to stop the monitoring would come in. Just turn it off when you're working on your own skin, or using mods of others. Or maybe there could be a way to force the program to recognize a modification of a skin. Hmm.
Reply #37 Tuesday, May 4, 2004 7:33 PM
I think the results should be linked with the skin on WC. So a person can see then now many people are using it now and perhaps how many have used it.
It sounds helpful, but not sure how much it would change my view about using a skin. I primarily go by the screenshot, if I like how it looks then I download it and see. I don't care if a ton of other people like it, it doesn't mean I will.
Reply #38 Tuesday, May 4, 2004 8:01 PM
Again: The question isn't whether you would use such a program. If you aren't interested in using a program like this then move along. Find something else to talk about.
So for those users who are interested in this kind of thing (we're talking a free program anyway) what features would you like to see?
Reply #39 Tuesday, May 4, 2004 8:07 PM
Reply #40 Tuesday, May 4, 2004 8:16 PM
That would be cool.
BTW, here's how it would work:
The program wouldn't know who you are. That data is irrelevant.
It just send the name of the skin/theme you're using to a database. Every time it matches with one that is existing, the count gets incremented. If it doesn't match, it creates a new entry.
At the end of the day, it sees which entries have the highest count and then looks at the WinCustomize database to see if there is a match there, otherwise it would just list the name. So if you're "working on a skin" it doesn't really matter because that would never show up in the top 10.
In terms of applications, what we would do is have a list of every skinning program we know of in a database. It would then go through that database and see if you're using it. If you are, it would increment the count in the database and then provide links to the top 10 or so.
It's pretty simple stuff and WindowBlinds used to have this built in in the pre 1.0 days and it was pretty neat. Users could which databases they wanted to contribute to and in return they would gain access to the results.
It's basically Alexa for skinning.
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Reply #21 Tuesday, May 4, 2004 10:18 AM
I wonder if it might not be better to put some sort of utility in the site that serves as an 'identifier, counter' rather than have to run it on my computer...? I don't even know if that's possible, but it could also identify those that have pirated software, too couldn't it? That might be a GOOD thing!!!