Apps and Software By Lee Mathews Jan. 3, 2014 11:32 am
Rejoice, Winamp fans, you’re getting a late Christmas present. A company based in Brussels has swooped in and saved your beloved media player — and more than 50,000 Shoutcast streaming radio stations — from AOL.
Back in November, things looked pretty grim. AOL announced that they were going to pull the plug on both Winamp and Shoutcast as the company continued to re-tool itself under the command of CEO Tim Armstrong (who is still not the same guy plays guitar for San Fran punk rockers Rancid).
At the end of November fans got some welcome news. Rumor had it that Microsoft was interested in making a deal with AOL. It certainly sounded like a good fit. Microsoft would almost certainly have liked to absorb all those Shoutcast stations into its Xbox music offerings.
That scenario didn’t play out, however, and instead it’s Belgium’s Radionomy that has come to the rescue. TechCrunch is reporting that the deal will be done by the end of the week. Once the papers have been signed, Radionomy will increase its stable of radio stations nearly tenfold — right now they’ve got about 6,000 streams.
Radionomy has apps available in just about every app store that matters, and they’ll no doubt be eager to capitalize on the tens of millions of Winamp installs already in use on Android devices.
Without knowing Radionomy’s plans, of course, there’s always the chance that Winamp could still be killed off. But considering that Radionomy bills itself as operating one of the biggest digital radio advertising networks in the world that seems unlikely.
More listeners and more stations mean more ads, and more ads mean more revenue. We’ll have to wait for an official announcement to know what will happen to Winamp and Shoutcast, but both are certainly much safer in Radionomy’s hands than they were in AOL’s.
Here’s hoping Radionomy lets Winamp continue whipping the llama’s ass.
More...
Back in November, things looked pretty grim. AOL announced that they were going to pull the plug on both Winamp and Shoutcast as the company continued to re-tool itself under the command of CEO Tim Armstrong (who is still not the same guy plays guitar for San Fran punk rockers Rancid).
At the end of November fans got some welcome news. Rumor had it that Microsoft was interested in making a deal with AOL. It certainly sounded like a good fit. Microsoft would almost certainly have liked to absorb all those Shoutcast stations into its Xbox music offerings.
That scenario didn’t play out, however, and instead it’s Belgium’s Radionomy that has come to the rescue. TechCrunch is reporting that the deal will be done by the end of the week. Once the papers have been signed, Radionomy will increase its stable of radio stations nearly tenfold — right now they’ve got about 6,000 streams.
Radionomy has apps available in just about every app store that matters, and they’ll no doubt be eager to capitalize on the tens of millions of Winamp installs already in use on Android devices.
Without knowing Radionomy’s plans, of course, there’s always the chance that Winamp could still be killed off. But considering that Radionomy bills itself as operating one of the biggest digital radio advertising networks in the world that seems unlikely.
More listeners and more stations mean more ads, and more ads mean more revenue. We’ll have to wait for an official announcement to know what will happen to Winamp and Shoutcast, but both are certainly much safer in Radionomy’s hands than they were in AOL’s.
Here’s hoping Radionomy lets Winamp continue whipping the llama’s ass.
More...
