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January 5, 2014Digital audio business Radionomy has acquired the both media player (Winamp) and radio platform (Shoutcast) from AOL. Radionomy is an online radio business based in Belgium. The purchase is a cash and share deal, worth between $5 million and $10 million, with AOL taking a 12% stake of Radionomy in the process. AOL paid some $80 million for Nullsoft, owner of Winamp and Shoutcast, in 1999. “Winamp is a top independent player that gives millions of people the best player functionality available,” Alexandre Saboundjian, Radionomy’s CEO, said in a statement. “Its role is clear in the future evolution of online media, we plan to make the player ubiquitous, developing new functionalities dedicated to desktop, mobile, car systems, connected devices and all other platforms.” Adding Shoutcast to Radionomy’s existing assets will make the company one of the biggest players in the radio streaming business, hosting some 60,000 radio stations, or roughly half the online radio stations on the market today. Meanwhile, Radionomy intends to offer Winamp’s media player just as it is today — with access to those 60,000 stations, but also playback ability for 60 audio and video formats; 6,000 add-ons like skins and plug-ins; and availability in 16 languages. In both cases, this will be a volume play for Radionomy. Among its other assets is the TargetSpot audio ad network, and the plan will be to use both Shoutcast and Winamp to increase TargetSpot’s inventory, and as everyone knows advertising is a game of scale. Radionomy has goals for the product developing new Winamp apps for iOS and Android that will be released later this year.
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August 9, 2012With so many Desktop media players available for the desktop and smart phone these days its hard to pick the right player for your non DRM protected music. There is so much media out there podcasts, streaming radio and MP3 files. I’ve used dozens over the years iTunes, Windows Media Player and MediaMonkey just to name a few. Any all are slow, crash or are not just cool. My personal favorite that works great is Winamp. We all remember Winamp as the first player of MP3 files and had a great streaming radio service at the time from Shoutcast. I have been using Winamp since Windows 98. Then the company got purchased by AOL and stayed around into the later years. Winamp has been stagnant for years, lacking a number of the features that make more modern music players popular. Now, however, a new version of Winamp has hit the streets, with a new look and tons of new useful features. The thing that impressed me most is Winamp for Mac. The latest version of Winamp for Mac Sync is available and is in Beta. This latest update of Winamp for Mac Sync Beta allows greater music management features, play queue enhancements and will allow future releases to be updated automatically. Some of the new features available are Play Queue Window Drag and Drop Auto-update Growl and Notification Support Additional Watch Folder Support Introduction of Release and Beta Channels Additional Keyboard Shortcuts Winamp for that Mac looks cool, it’s light weight and takes up very little resources. Winamp has also uped there game making there new Winamp available for the Android. To make things even better you can turn your smart phone into a remote for Winamp. Winamp is back and better then ever!
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April 16, 2012Heartland Payment System TJX Epsilon RSA Stuxnet Department of Veterans Affairs Sony PlayStation Network ESTsoft Gawker Media Google, etc. VeriSign CardSystems AOL Monster.com Fidelity National Information Services http://www.csoonline.com/article/700263/the-15-worst-data-security-breaches-of-the-21st-century Out of all these I think the most brutal security breach was AOL because they got domain hijacked. But I think the VeriSign and Playstation hack effected more people and on a much larger scale. The Playstation network I remember took a VERY long time to recover from the hack and then was hacked again. Security is so important but no matter how much you secure something someone can almost always fine a back door especially if they have the time, resources and money.