RIP: Winamp (rumors of demise greatly exaggerated)
 

It will stop whipping the llama's ass on Dec. 20th.

RIP Winamp: iconic media player to be discontinued December 20th, 2013 - Haverzine

First they took away my Netscape, and I said nothing.
Then they took away my Winamp and I said nothing.
If they come for my Mirc I'll have a shotgun ready.

It's been about 5 years since IRC had any relevance IMO

Except, of course, to all the people who use it... in which case it is quite relevant!

I remember when a Winamp update - maybe 2002-2003ish - took away the ability to hit "J" and bring up a text box to type a song you wanted to jump to. Damn near caused a riot in the dorms.

Though I'm guessing that usage rates are fairly low at this point. I used to use Winamp all the time, but its been very, very long since I've even fired it up. I don't think I've even installed it on my new laptop (which is about a year old)

One of my colleagues still uses an old version of Winamp :) Guess he still will until future OSes don't support it.

I've always used Winamp. So now what do I use?
What do you guys use?

Spotify. Or if its music I own that isn't on spotify (Beatles, Zeppelin) I uploaded it to Google music.

I still use winamp quite a bit - mostly as I'm cleaning up tags before I import to iTunes.

I use Google Play.

As I will probably be the last Winamp user, I will make sure I turn out the lights on my way out.

Never been a fan of the way Google Play, Amazon, or Itunes organizes music. This entire situation is completely expected, as I am sure the number of people that actually have a local collection of .mp3s is getting smaller.

It's not like it's going to magically stop working. They're just going to stop supporting it/keeping it available for download. You guys should be able to continue using it.

Never used it...Figured it was something useless

I think every person in college used it back in the late 90's-early 2000's. Being able to skin the player was a nice feature.

They started to get bloaty later on but it really was a great music player in it's early days. Simple and did what you wanted without a bunch of crap thrown in.

It reminds me a lot of the uTorrent situation now. Started off lightweight made by a person or a couple of people. Gets bought out by a larger company and end up becoming more and more bloated. I never upgraded past WinAmp 2.x. 3.x and 5.x just seemed packed with features that I would never use.

Seems like browsers and messenger services went through a similar transformation too. Speed and ease of use are overlooked too often. Makes me wonder if we'll see a shift in music players back to a more simple design.

You think about software, tho, and things go through so many revisions in just a few years, due to the nature of the beast. If something is already small, quick, and efficient- where do you improve?

SI

It appears Microsoft may be Winamp's savior:

Source: Microsoft In Talks To Buy Shoutcast And Winamp From AOL | TechCrunch

This. Feel like I should grab a copy of it.

Winamp and Napster used to be like peanut butter and jelly back in the day.

I've never been more into music than in the Napster days.

Ever since then my interest has just...really waned.

Isn't that as much a factor of age as the content itself?

SI

Winamp lives!

Winamp’s new owner has big plans for mobile, even car audio systems | Ars Technica