I wish you all a very Merry Christmas 2008. Stay tuned for the next version of your Messenger add-on and enjoy the holidays with your family and friends :-).

The results are in! After a careful review of all the skins we received during the contest, ladies and gentlemen, I give you the winners:

Deformity Category

1st Place: Crystal Lab by ZOiD  winner of a Cintiq 12WX.

2nd Place: SilverGlazz by LuckyMe  winner of an Intuos3 6*8.

Originality Category

1st Place: Stormless Messenger by mynetx  winner of a Cintiq 12WX.

2nd Place: Beaver and Steve by aNILEator  winner of an Intuos3 6*8.

Functionality Category

1st Place: Wii Messenger by Ethan Li  winner of a Cintiq 12WX.

2nd Place: Windows Live Messenger 2009 by roflmao456  winner of an Intuos3 6*8.

…and the big winner of this contest, all categories considered is…

Top Place: Oil Slick by Volv who wins the Cintiq 20WSX!

Congratulations to all of you and a big round of applause (queue /sapplause) to every other contestant. 20 million skin packages have been downloaded since last year on this site alone, you can bet your work was certainely not in vain. Enjoy the rest while you can, a new version of Messenger Plus! will soon be released to let you update your skins for the new Messenge 9 Beta. More about that probably next week… :-).

Over all the Skin Packs that were received during the contest, 41 were validated and are now in the process of being judged. I am happy to say that the official skin database has now more than a hundred different skins for all of you to enjoy. More about that will be said when the winners are announced, on the 26th of September.

On a side note, I’d like to apologize for the problems you may have experienced with the Emotion Sounds feature of Messenger Plus! lately. Microsoft is not the only company who has suffered from server issues in the past few weeks (I wish I could spend time buying a new pair of shoes too). We’re currently in the process of putting everything back together, you can expect service to be back to normal by tomorrow. Thank you for your patience and your understanding.

Be quick! As mentioned in the previous news post, the Skinning Contest ends on September 14th. It means that you only have one week left to submit this great skin of yours you’ve been working on or thinking about in the past couple of weeks. If you already submitted a skin, you can still use the extra time to polish your work some more, add new options, make sure it works like a charm on all your contacts’ computers, etc… testing is always an important part of any development project and those who overlook it often pay a higher price in time later (and in this case, possibly lose a 2,000$ graphic tablet).

In the many skins that have been received already, several are already must-see/must-use creations (no, I won’t say which ones yet :). Take a look in the Skins Database and download whatever fits you best! One skin I’d like to mention in particular is Windows Live Messenger 2009. For those of you who heard about the latest beta version of Messenger but don’t want to be bothered to download and install a buggy, unfinished version of Messenger, this skin will at the very least let you keep your head up when your geeky friends show off and tell you about it. Also, in case you’d wonder, there is currently no plan to release a compatible version of Messenger Plus! for the leaked beta. Just be a little more patient and we’ll all be able to enjoy a reliable version of a cool new Messenger. Let the testers at Microsoft do their work and I’ll do mine in time too, as always :-).

Keep up the good work on those skins! Have a great weekend.

We’ve done it! 50 million people now use Messenger Plus! on a daily basis. 50 million! that’s just plain incredible. On some popular sites, Messenger Plus! is downloaded even more than software such as Acrobat Reader and Firefox. To celebrate in beauty, we’ve temporarily changed the logo on the site as well as the home page. We’re also putting the finishing touches on the skinning contest that will start in August.

In addition, I’ve also decided to respond to the overwhelming demand of tickets for the Fantasia movie of this year by distributing 20 tickets more than what was originally planned. We’ll meet and discuss what you want to see in the forthcoming version 4.70 of Messenger Plus!. See you soon :-)