Stardock operates a series of community websites, each with a different focus, but all relying on the same underlying forum system and technology.  WinCustomize is by far our largest and most active community, serving millions of visitors every month.  Second to WinCustomize is JoeUser, our blog site with a community focus.

Last week, I asked if you "blogged" and the majority of you said you do not blog (something along the lines of 2/3rd of the vote) but a reasonable number of you claim you do blog (or at least have at one point).  I'm sure some of you are wondering why exactly I'm asking.

JoeUser, originally launched in mid 2003, is being rewritten from the ground-up and is slated to be relaunched in early 2008.  JoeUser is our effort to bring our expertise in community building together with the increasingly popular blog idea.  When we launched 4 years ago, we were ahead of the game, beyond LiveJournal and Blogger, there were very few players in the blog space.  While others have cropped up, still none have embraced the value of building community.  Most blogs are stand-alone sites that you only find if you specifically link to them.  JoeUser is built to promote content from all authors across the entire site.

But why is this important to you?

JoeUser 2 is bringing with it a number of changes, including an improved forums back-end that will be used across all sites that will improve speed and reliability.  We also have a number of content control features planned (not necessarily available at launch) that will allow users to block specific users from posting to their articles, and even set users to "ignore" so you won't see their comments on articles or in the forums.

As the new site grows in popularity, the Stardock Community will grow.  More people will be discovering the world of Windows Skinning.  New artists, new users, new friends.  JoeUser is our next big growth area, which will help make this community stronger and better.