After more than 15 years since the initial release, Winamp will be discontinued by AOL on December 20, 2013. The decision might be strange for some of us since Winamp is still one of the most used music player right now worldwide.
AOL brought Nullsoft, the company that created Winamp in June 1999 for $80 million in stock and years after told everybody that Winamp is still powerful and has a lot of potential to fight even with iTunes.
Now that the news is official, the only thing that we can do is to download at least one version of Winamp, until December 20. Personally, I’ve used Winamp ever since I brought a computer, back in 1999. For me, this was simply the best ever music application ever. I don’t even kept it updated, so I run a 2010. In fact it doesn’t matter what version you run since the music is what you want to listen to.
The shocking message is right on the first page of 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. See release notes for latest improvements to this last release.
Thanks for supporting the Winamp community for over 15 years.
Even if the news is official AOL refused to comment:
We decline to comment beyond the note posted on the site earlier.
One thing is for sure, AOL didn’t knew what to do with an iconic application and unsurprisingly destroyed Winamp after 14 years of management. The news is sad, because Winamp still had a lot of potential, even as a simple media player app. Sure some think that Winamp is way behind other music players, but actually Winamp was one of the first ever music players and it’s the reason why other started to (re)invent them. I don’t think everybody wants a music player that knows how to cook or wash dishes. A lite-Winamp version was enough for some of us, as long as the music and its quality is much more important.
Source: Winamp
