Winamp will be shutting down next month. This news comes following 15 years of being available and has arrived as little more than a mention on the Winamp download site. There was no specifics given as to the reason for the shut down, however speculation suggests lack of popularity at this point.
The folks behind the Winamp app, Nullsoft were acquired by AOL in 1999 and while there are Mac and Android apps available for download — things never seemed as good as the early days when Winamp was highly customizable and available only for Windows. Before we get all nostalgic here, we can look towards the brief statement from Winamp.
“Winamp.com and associated web services will no longer be available past December 20, 2013. Additionally, Winamp Media players will no longer be available for download. Please download the latest version before that date.”
With that having been said, now appears like a good time for the trip down memory lane. Looking towards Wikipedia and we learn that Winamp was created in 1997 by Justin Frankel and Dmitry Boldrev. The early days of Winamp had it available as freeware/shareware and with support for a variety of file types and customizable with plugins and skins.
Winamp was integrated with SHOUTcast for streaming radio and also once found use as a podcatcher. All that aside, Winamp appears to have reached the height of success in 2005 when the user base grew to more than 52 million. But while the software will only be going away for good in December 2013, it seems the writing on the wall may have began 10 years earlier, in 2003. That was when Winamp saw a near-simultaneous departure of both Justin Frankel and the original development team. As a result, Winamp (Nullsoft) became a division of AOL Music.
SOURCE: Winamp
Well i guess it want whip the Lhamas ass anymore?
Bummer, I still use Winamp on both Windows and Android.
Lol. Welcome to the new millenium?
The new millenium of crap and and half-$@ junk for crazy prices? Yea… so much better
If anyone is looking for an alternative checkout MusicBee.
I love(d? :-/) WinAMP for two reasons – plugins (as an OCR community member, it’s (it was) great for playing audio files from legacy video game console games), and the first(?) to use wireless sync between computer and android app. It’s sad to see that it’s going south for good.
Kind of sad. I used WinAmp’s Android App back before Google’s stock music player was any good and before all of this Google Play Music jazz. It was ahead of the other music players at the time, but now with Google Play Music I guess there is just no more place for it in the Android ecosystem.
Really SAD! AOL screws evrythng up, Winamp has so much to offer, it’s so much better than other players, they just don’t have the advertising other players have. Really sad, another good product gone to be replaced by absolute ****
Will the Android app be canned too? Drat, it’s the only half-decent music player that’s free on the play store. I hope we can at least save the last APK so we can install it on future devices.
This is such horse-shit, I’ve had paid version of Winamp on all my android devices for format compatibility, and now I have to find it from third party hosting site since google play pulled it.
I can’t listen to a live podcast because the site only supports windoze media, winamp and quicktime, none of which are available for android devices.