Winamp, the storied MP3 player bought by AOL in June 1999 for over $80 million, is set to shut down in exactly one month. According to a post that went live Wednesday at 12:00pm ET on the Winamp website:
“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.”
Former Winamp employees blame AOL mismanagement that began over a decade ago for the decline of the service since its dotcom-boom acquisition. Winamp continued to receive updates and make a tiny amount of money for AOL throughout the last 15 years. AOL even released the first Android version in 2010 and a Mac version in 2011.
Winamp estimate its current revenue at around $6 million annually and Winamp still has an estimated user base of millions worldwide, a small fraction of which live in the United States
Not one of the current media players today offers the customization and range of options that Winamp offered even 15 years ago. The software will be missed.