Phase I is to build a nice skin editor that lets people do the usual chores of setting banners, backgrounds, borders and fonts. I think we'll see the beginning of Phase I on Thursday of next week (March 3...).

Phase II will include the ability for everyone to save as many skins as they want and (optionally) share them with others. You will have your own personal collection of skins and you'll be able to switch them quickly, in case you like to keep your profile fresh and interesting.

Each skin you create will either be "private" or "sharable." In addition, we *might* implement a way to send your skin to someone else in case you want to share, but not openly. When a skin is shared openly, people will be able to grab it off of your profile. In addition, in the skin editor, people will be able to access a library of shared skins. Skins will be ranked, somehow (BOOMs? # of grabs?), to make it easier to find high-quality alternatives. Once you've grabbed a skin and decided to keep it, you can edit it and make it your own and/or share it.

I'm not sure we need complicated SRM - skin rights management :-) I'm thinking it'll do to show the creative parentage of a skin. I imagine it will be kind of fun, too. Everyone who contributes to the skin would get a share of the glory ...Picture the following listing for the #4 most popular skin:

#4 bubbly space bunnies (845 grabs)
created by CreativeGuy after "space bunnies" by bunnyLover, from the original "space case" by tallbob.

All of this is in the early "drawing board" stage. I expect we'll be having some pointed conversations about various aspects of the design in the next week or two.

---- Tallbob