If you regularly listened to music on your computer over the past few years then chances are you have used Winamp. Winamp has announced it is shutting down. Winamp.com will itself shutdown and the software will not be available for download from 20th December 2013.
The media player was more famous for playing music files than video files. Despite being a very popular media player, it really did not take off into selling online music or digital music. Over the years, it lost out to the likes of iTunes by Apple and also probably the rise of online video streaming site like YouTube did not help.
Winamp was created by a company called Nullsoft which was acquired by AOL. This was back in the late 90s when MP3 music was a big rage and iconic upstarts like Napster were changing the music industry. AOL was working with TIme-Warner a media company on a merger. Media companies were traditionally against digital sales of music or the whole MP3 revolution.
That finished off the chances of Winamp doing something like say Apple iTunes did. In the following years, Napster was brought down, but Winamp survived as the amount of downloaded music was growing exponentially.
Lately with music moving from PCs to phones, Winamp was probably a lost cause. It is sad because of its rich legacy but it is probably for the best.
The current year seems to be the final goodbye to many internet old timers like Google Reader, AltaVista and now Winamp.
-- This Post Winamp Media Player is Shutting Down! is Published on Devils Workshop .
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