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Andrew

By Andrew
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Andrew

Andrew

Posted
Posted

AOL better not stop supporting Winamp.

According to an article the last of the employees working there were laid off.

http://www.theregister.com/2004/11/11/aol_axes_nullsoft/

The team, which AOL acquired in 1999 for $100m - two years after the then 18-year old Justin Frankel - first released his Winamp MP3 player for Windows.

Lol, 100 million for a piece of software that was freeware? Bad investment, especially if you are wanting everyone to pay for a "pro" version.

Winamp's brand image has gone downhill over the years in my opinion. (Winamp 3 rofl, forced me to buy a new computer as I could not play music on my computer anymore.)

Hopefully it becomes an open source project and survives.

I hate it when companies buy upcoming projects and they try to make them all spiffy while not even looking at what the consumers needs are. Then once they are unprofitable, they abandon them.

At least oldversion.com has lots of great programs backed up until the lawyers come along and tell them to get rid of it (kazaalite ++)

http://www.oldversion.com/program.php?n=winamp

Kinda funny, one day I was browsing winamp.com and they had a link to a video camera that showed what the workers did all day long. It looked like they werent doing too much. They had a great work environment (culture) though.

Andrew

Andrew

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Winamp owns. :(

Although I have to admit that WMP has gotten better. But was crap compared to Winamp many years ago.

I remember when Sonique came onto the market and was a hit (around December 1999?), yet it has since died completely. Skins were bloated, yet it looked cool.

Seal89999

Seal89999

Posted
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Never been too much of a fan of Winamp. Seemed too cheap and I just dident get a feel for it. Windows Media player on the other hand has a good professional look to it, great features and easy to navigate interface. But hey whatever works for you guys.

Megashrap

Megashrap

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Posted

I have winamp exe. on an old backup cd I made like 4 years ago, I still use it. And without having to update it the damn EQ, and pre-amp sets alone  outdoes WMP by a long shot as for sound quality. A few movies here and there is all I've ever got any use from WMP.

Dragoon Knight

Dragoon Knight

Posted
Posted

Meh, each to their own, I suppose.  We could argue for ages about which is best (I know I did) but it all just comes down to personal preference.  For me, Windows Media Player is a lot better, whatever anyone says.  I used Winamp for a long time, just because a friend said it was better than Windows Media Player.  I never did like it that much... Windows Media Player wins every time, for me.

Unless I want to play a .ogg, of course. :P

Andrew

Andrew

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Ew?

Is all I can say. Came with my computer, but I uninstalled it. (along with 30 other junk programs I don't use.)

They put so much crap on those programs, that they are not really good for just listening to music. Hog a lot of resources too. Winamp 2.9x takes up very little.

I hope we can at least all agree that realplayer is a POS. It was good when it first came out, but now it is bloated beyond recognition. I hate how some sites have a realplayer only policy. So what I have to do is install realplayer, watch the movie clip, then uninstall realplayer. Too much work. :P

Ice_Cube

Ice_Cube

Posted
Posted
The team, which AOL acquired in 1999 for $100m - two years after the then 18-year old Justin Frankel - first released his Winamp MP3 player for Windows.

Lol, 100 million for a piece of software that was freeware? Bad investment, especially if you are wanting everyone to pay for a "pro" version.

You saying Buying Linux for 100m would be a bad investment? LOL

Andrew

Andrew

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Yes, if no one is going to pay to use it. The only way AOL is making money off of it is if someone buys a pro version (laugh) or clicks on a link on the website or see one of the many hidden subliminal messages in the corporate skins to go buy/watch the companies products/movies/tv shows.

I don't see how they could have made 100 million from winamp so far. Especially having to pay salaries also.

My guess is AOL wanted it to become another realplayer or WMP or something that they could get income off of and put lots of ads/crap into. The day Winamp does that, I will simply install an older version.

I would say that was the downfall of ICQ (another AOL buy out!!) They added lots of garbage, ads wtf?!

As soon as ads came into effect I said screw it. And ICQ at the time was much better than MSN which for some reason everyone was using.

I think it was after ICQ 99 it started to go downhill. They even had to introduce an ICQ Lite to compete.

Ice_Cube

Ice_Cube

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hm, so if the competition commission had no objection, 100m would be way to much for microsoft to pay to get rid of its biggest rival....

The technology itself is worth a lot more...and the market share is staggering.

mozilla firefox? worth less than 10m?

Just because a companies main product is free doesn't make that company worthless.

Andrew

Andrew

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What did AOL have competition with music about? Maybe they just wanted to control it, but I don't remember

them releasing a product that was in competition with Winamp. Maybe the technology was worth something, and there definitely was a market share, yet I don't see how they could have made money off of it.

Just because a companies main product is free doesn't make that company worthless.

I think it is called goodwill.

So AOL has $100 million of Winamp goodwill. Nice. :)

Ice_Cube

Ice_Cube

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AOL is in commpetition with microsoft.... WinAmp is the biggest opponent to the MS corperation...

AOL messanger VS MSN

Market share is EVERYTHING here, whoever can reach the biggest audience will win, now obviously Microsoft have the advantage here with controlling the worlds leading OS. This is why about two years ago AOL were in talks with RedHat involving a take over.

AOL is absolutley massive, with a huge customer base over many different services. It understandably wants to get its finger in every pie and has the finacial backing to do so.

gryphon

gryphon

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AOL is in commpetition with microsoft.... WinAmp is the biggest opponent to the MS corperation...

You have got to be kidding me....

Market share is EVERYTHING here, whoever can reach the biggest audience will win, now obviously Microsoft have the advantage here with controlling the worlds leading OS. This is why about two years ago AOL were in talks with RedHat involving a take over.

True, although the important market share is not who has the best audio player. Francly I doubt MS even cares. MS will still get it's millions for the server OS, Office and support contracts. Besides that it just follows the competition. They have a media player, we get one to, they have a game console. . let's make one of our own. Not only AOL has millions.. .MS has them to. And with it they just probe the market.. . let's make a muic player. . we don't have to make money with it. . as long as someone else isn't getting really rich with it to.

I doubt WinAmp will be a opponent. . . although I am curious on what the SUN takeover will do and the current Novell strategy. . that will harm MS much more then a 100m media player...

Ice_Cube

Ice_Cube

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Sorry, I thought it was taken as read that when I said winamp was MS' greatest competitor I was refering to the media playing market...... sorry for any confusion.

Yes, to be fair MS will not care as their monopolistic grip on software packages is unrivaled (thats not so say that microsofts procucts are not superior though).

we don't have to make money with it. . as long as someone else isn't getting really rich with it to.

precisely, that brings me back to my argument that paying money for something that does not necessarly (sp?) make money is a bad thing.

exatreide

exatreide

Posted
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been useing winamp 2 since it came out, and its fan frellin tastic..

winamp 3 sucked up huge resources i uninstalled it in like 5 minutes

LONG LIVE WINAMP 2! hahaha  :)

pardon my Sweedish....

Megashrap

Megashrap

Posted
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AOL is in commpetition with microsoft.... WinAmp is the biggest opponent to the MS corperation...

AOL messanger VS MSN

  The only thing from AOL i've ever used was messenger a couple of years ago. Somehow I really don't think Microsoft has trouble sleeping at night worrying about AOL's competition with them.  For some reason I have always considered AOL's service as a Internet 101, or a navigating the Internet for dummies.  That and the fact when I first had dial-up and did once have AOL, after I cancelled with them I was hounded for several years after by them to  re-establish service.  Then they became a pain in the ass.

erjin999

erjin999

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I hope we can at least all agree that realplayer is a POS. It was good when it first came out, but now it is bloated beyond recognition. I hate how some sites have a realplayer only policy. So what I have to do is install realplayer, watch the movie clip, then uninstall realplayer. Too much work. :P

I agree with you, I hate having to have it installed, but for those sites that will not work without it...bugger.

I didnt realise Winamp 3 was so bloated, admittedly that was around the time I stopped using media players except for movies (zoomplayer !  ;)). And the last time I used it a month or two ago it said something about security blah blah...upgrade V5 blah blah...I hit yes. Maybe I will start using it again, and use version 2.X...what was the last versoin that is not considered bloated ? Was that also the last version Justin Frankel worked on ?

Andrew

Andrew

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Actually you can download version 5, and just don't check off modern skins and other stuff to get the latest version if winamp 2.9x.

I cant find how you actually do it(what to uncheck when installing), but there is a way. search the winamp forums.

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