The German scientists behind the MP3 format released their first encoder in July 1994, but for the next three years, it remained difficult to share and find the resulting music files. Like most companies, Winamp was created to solve a “ pain problem.” That problem? Two decades ago, it was pretty difficult to organize and play compressed music, which had just started to enter mainstream usage. (Update: An Ars reader points out that the history page has moved, but the link to the alumni page still reverts back to the home page.) So how exactly did Winamp squander the incredible head start it had on most other Internet music businesses? Here's how. However, references to the application’s storied history, both good and bad, have been scrubbed or omitted from the Winamp current site- it’s just a big blank page. And Winamp still has an estimated user base of millions worldwide, a small fraction of which live in the United States. Amazingly, given all the time elapsed, AOL still makes a decent amount of money on the site and on the program-while the company has declined to release official figures, former employees who worked on Winamp estimate its current revenue at around $6 million annually.
WINAMP SKINS 2012 DOWNLOAD ANDROID
Today, Winamp continues to be updated AOL released its first Android version in 2010 and a Mac version in 2011. This is unacceptable to me as an individual, therefore I must leave." The company controls the most effective means of self-expression I have. For instance, in 2000, just a year after the acquisition, Frankel released (and open sourced) Gnutella, a new “headless” peer-to-peer file-sharing protocol that understandably steamed the bigwigs at AOL corporate headquarters in Dulles, Virginia.īy early 2004, Rolling Stone dubbed Nullsoft’s founder the “ world’s most dangerous geek”-but companies like AOL aren't good fits for dangerous geeks. That same year, Frankel resigned, writing on his website a few lines that were later removed: "For me, coding is a form of self-expression.
The problems began early, since Nullsoft wasn't interested in being a traditional corporate unit. (He declined to be interviewed for this article.) “I'm always hoping that they will come around and realize that they're killing and find a better way, but AOL always seems too bogged down with all of their internal politics to get anything done,” he said. Justin Frankel, Winamp's primary developer, seems to concur in an interview he gave to BetaNews. “There's no reason that Winamp couldn’t be in the position that iTunes is in today if not for a few layers of mismanagement by AOL that started immediately upon acquisition,” Rob Lord, the first general manager of Winamp, and its first-ever hire, told Ars.įurther Reading “Oprah” for indie bands: Apple once loved unknown acts-what changed? It’s almost as if the Internet has forgotten about the upstart with the odd slogan that looked at one time like it would be the company to revolutionize digital music. Winamp's 15-year anniversary is now upon us, with little fanfare. AOL famously acquired the company in June 1999 for $80-$100 million-and Winamp almost immediately lost its innovative edge. But there was such a time-and even after "MP3" entered the mainstream, organizing, ripping, and playing back one's music collection remained a clunky and frustrating experience.Įnter Winamp, the skin-able, customizable MP3 player that "really whips the llama's ass." In the late 1990s, every music geek had a copy llama-whipping had gone global, and the big-money acquisition offers quickly followed. MP3s are so natural to the Internet now that it’s almost hard to imagine a time before high-quality compressed music. This piece originally ran on J(and Winamp finally called it quits in November 2013).
Today, we resurface our look at the greatest MP3 player that was-Winamp. But during the last 15 years or so, that wasn't always the case. As many of us are busy crafting the perfect playlist for grilling outdoors, most likely such labor is happening on a modern streaming service or within iTunes.
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