FWD: The Slow Death Of Winamp?
- From: "Ron Canazzi" <aa2vm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Winamp For The Blind" <winamp4theblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 18:00:16 -0500
Hi Group,
Does this really mean the slow death of Winamp? Read on and comment if you
wish.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Cory Samaha" <
csamaha@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <
blindtech@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, November 10, 2004 3:59 PM
Subject: What to do about winamp slowly dying?
Hey guys, This article was just posted to betanews today. It is so sad, as
I have been using winamp for about 5 years now and it was always a very
stable, solid, easy to use and fast audio player with many fantastic plug
ins that made it even better. I hate to think that we must all migrate to
windows media player some day. Does anyone have another audio player they
found that is as good as Winamp? Anyway, here is the article incase anyone
is interested.
Death Knell Sounds for Nullsoft, Winamp
By
Nate Mook
, BetaNews
November 10, 2004, 1:26 PM
The last members of the original Winamp team have said goodbye to AOL and
the door
has all but shut on the Nullsoft era, BetaNews has learned.
Only a few employees remain to prop up the once-ubiquitous
digital audio
player with minor updates, but no further improvements to Winamp are
expected.
Click here to find out more!
\
Winamp's demise comes as no surprise to those close to the company who say
the software
has been on life support since the resignation of Nullsoft founder and
Winamp creator
Justin Frankel last January.
The marriage of Nullsoft and AOL was always one of discontent. After AOL
acquired
the small company in 1999 for around $100 million, the young team of Winamp
developers
was assimilated into a strict corporate culture that begged for rebellion.
Although
Nullsoft was initially given a long leash by AOL, It wasn't long until the
two ideologies
collided.
Frankel and his team were accustomed to simply brainstorming ideas over
coffee and
bringing them to the masses without approval. So when Frankel and fellow
Nullsoft
developer Tom Pepper devised a decentralized peer-to-peer
file sharing
system, dubbed Gnutella, parent AOL was left in the dark.
Gnutella was unveiled
in March 2000, much to the chagrin of an unprepared AOL; executives feared
the program
would encourage copyright infringement and damage the company's pending
merger with
Time Warner. AOL quickly clamped down on Gnutella, but not before the
software's
source code
leaked. Gnutella-based alternatives soon followed, igniting a peer-to-peer
land
grab that has yet to subside.
But AOL knew it had to protect its investment and turn a profit from the
freely available
Winamp. Frankel and crew found themselves in hot water numerous times, but
always
escaped with little more than a proverbial slap on the wrist.
However, growing displeasure reached a boiling point with Nullsoft's
unsanctioned
release of WASTE
-- an encrypted file-sharing network -- in June 2003. Frankel threatened to
resign
after AOL
removed WASTE
, but remained with the company long enough to finish Winamp 5.0.
Frankel's departure followed AOL layoffs and the closure of Nullsoft's San
Francisco
offices in December 2003.
With AOL struggling to stave off declining subscriber numbers and
700 additional layoffs
planned for next month, the company's focus has shifted away from
supporting acquisitions
such as Winamp.
Despite the somber farewell, Nullsoft's former masterminds are proud of
their accomplishments.
Winamp helped start a digital audio revolution and boasts an incredible 60
million
users per month.
After a disappointing
Winamp3
, Nullsoft developers returned to the drawing board and completed
long-standing goals
with the release of
Winamp 5.0
in late 2003.
Nullsoft's
Shoutcast
, which pioneered audio streaming over the Internet, is called "the Net's
best secret"
by its creator Tom Pepper and has reached 170,000 simultaneous users
accounting for
70 million hours of listening each month.
For its part, AOL says it remains committed to Winamp, stating it is "a
thriving
product that AOL continues to support and will continue to support."
But without those who poured their heart and soul into building the
software, Winamp
seems destined to meet a fate similar to fellow audio player
Sonique
, after Lycos saw the departure of its development team. Sonique has
stagnated for
years, and development ceased altogether last March.
P
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