Microsoft wants to buy Winamp and Shoutcast from AOL

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Microsoft By Lee Mathews Nov. 22, 2013 10:31 am
Bummed about the news that Winamp has a little under a month left to live? Don’t give up hope just yet. There’s reason to believe that Winamp will continue to live on.
Microsoft is apparently involved in talks to buy Winamp. AOL is clearly done with Winamp, which the company picked up back in 1999 as part of the Nullsoft acquisition. That was the same year AOL acquired the popular music site Spinner, which the company also killed off.
Spinner was shut down earlier this year, replaced with “AOL Radio powered by Slacker.” Now that AOL has announced that they’re done with Winamp, too, it seems pretty clear that the company is content to stay out of the online music game.
Microsoft, on the other hand, is doing everything it can to become a major player. Microsoft continues evolving into a devices and services company, and Xbox Music, Video, and Games, play defining roles in the shift.
Winamp and its tens of millions of users would be an excellent pick-up for Microsoft. There’s a ton of listening data being generated by Winamp users that could be used to improve Xbox Music. It would also give Microsoft yet another Android app to add to its roster — which, of course, also means one more place to gather listening data.
But Winamp might not even be what Microsoft is really after. Shoutcast is an even juicier target, with its 50,000-plus streaming stations. They’d fit in nicely with Xbox Music — and even make a nice addition to Windows Media Player, which a lot of folks still use for radio-style listening on their PCs.
Neither Microsoft or AOL has offered a comment about the situation, and even though it might make sense for Microsoft to snap up Winamp and Shoutcast, there’s no guarantee that a deal will be done. For now, Winamp fans, keep your fingers crossed.
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