What it was. What replaced it.
Skinnable, llama-whipping, MP3 freedom
- FOUNDERS
- Justin Frankel · Dmitry Boldyrev
- PEAK
- ~80M users (2001)
- ANTHEM
- Eiffel 65 — "Blue (Da Ba Dee)" (default playlist energy)
Open-sourced in 2024 — kind of
Winamp was small, fast, infinitely skinnable, and loaded almost any audio format you threw at it. For a stretch in the late 1990s and early 2000s, it was simply how you listened to music on a computer.
AOL acquired Winamp in 1999 for $80M, then proceeded to slowly suffocate it. Discontinued in 2013, revived intermittently ever since, and still owed a debt by every audio app you've ever opened.
The MP3 player against which all others were measured. Llama status: thoroughly whipped.
- ↗ Wikipedia: Winamp
- ↗ Ars Technica: Winamp's woes — How AOL killed it
- ↗ TechCrunch: Winamp shutting down (2013)
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