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Business News Digital
AOL to wind down Winamp
By Chris Cooke | Published on Friday 22 November 2013
A new version of the classic digital media player Winamp was released this week, but it will be the last version ever. Or so it seems.
Owner AOL posted a message on the Winamp site on Wednesday saying that: “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”.
Although it has been something of a niche technology for some time now, as mainstream users chose to play digital audio through the iTunes player, streaming platforms, or the proprietary digital media players built into their portable devices, it’s the end of an era because Winamp, launched in 1997 by developer Justin Frankel, was one of the first bits of software for playing MP3s to gain widespread popularity online.
Though, that said, rumour has it that Microsoft may acquire the IP in Winamp; whether that means it could continue to release products under that name remains to be seen.