I’m going to be honest, I barely remember Winamp. It’s a tool that I vaguely recall seeing on older Windows 98 PCs when I was a kid, and have barely seen since. In fact, with most if not all of the people I know using streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music, good ol’ MP3 players like Winamp have since lost its place on our computers.
Winamp themselves though begs to differ. If you were to head over to their website, you’ll find that it’s been completely redesigned, and now claims that ‘something big is happening’. It continues, saying that they’re currently building a Winamp for the next generation—not just an update mind you, but ‘totally remastered’. It also states that the new Winamp will connect you to your music wherever you are, bring you closer to the artists you love and will be home to your favourite music podcasts and radio stations.
That’s a lot of preamble to digest, but it seems that it’s going to become not just a media player anymore, but also an app where you can find online radio stations, podcasts and stream your music too. In fact, there’s even a section for ‘creators’, where artists and labels can get in touch with Winamp to get themselves featured on the new Winamp. Potentially, it’s going to be a media player still but with elements of streaming services baked in too. At time of writing though, there’s no word yet on when this new Winamp will launch.
For the Gen Z readers among you, Winamp first appeared back in 1997 and was at one time one of the most popular media player programs around for Windows. It came at a time when people were busy ripping their music CDs and surfing the high seas for MP3 files of their favourite songs. Winamp gave users an easy-to-use, customisable MP3 player that people loved, with a library of plug-ins one could add to cover more file formats, have extra music visualisation graphics and even new features like an alarm clock and auto pause.
Eventually though, Nullsoft, the company behind the original Winamp, was bought out by the conglomerate AOL. That in turn caused it development on it to stagnate, leaving little to no room for innovation as the original developers behind it left AOL. By 2008, a Belgian companu called Radionomy purchased Nullsoft, which includes the Winamp brand and app. It seems as though they are also the ones behind the new plans for a Winamp revival.
If you’re interested in checking out this new Winamp, you can head over to their website for more information. There, you can also be a beta tester too by giving them your name and email, but that won’t give you instant access to their beta program. Instead, you’ll need to wait for the beta version to be ready before they send out a notice to you. However, the current version is also available to download for those of you unwilling to part with the classic Winamp you know and love.
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