Winamp's woes: how the greatest MP3 player undid itself

Back in the day I used WinAMP (and X11amp) as a simple front end to my web-based Linux jukebox server that I had ripped all of my CDs on to. Those were the days of AudioGalaxy and Red Hat 6 and WindowMaker. It was a marvelous time, for a couple of years anyway.<p>Then WinAMP 3.0 happened, and it was buggy garbage.<p>Then I discovered what iTunes could do for me as far as organizing my music. It put WinAMP 3.0 in a new light, and I decided to give it another shot. Nope, still garbage. Then I tried the newly-released WMP 9. That was garbage too.<p>So I retired my Linux Jukebox and migrated to iTunes. Then I got an iPod. Then I got a PowerBook. Later I threw out my beige boxes, learned Cocoa and iOS development, and now that's what I do for a living.<p>So if WinAMP 3.0 wasn't such a mess then I might still be a Windows developer. Thanks, WinAMP, for inadvertently putting me on a new path.

&#62;<i>“There's no reason that Winamp couldn’t be in the position that iTunes is in today if not for a few layers of mismanagement by AOL that started immediately upon acquisition,” Rob Lord"</i><p>Then why did you sell it for &#60;$100MM?<p>This is nothing against the software. In fact, I <i>still</i> use WinAMP on my PCs (no lie).<p>But it annoys me when people pile on about what happens to their companies after they are acquired. If the legacy of your company is important to you (and no one says it has to be) why are you selling out? AOL isn't to blame for WinAMP going down hill, Nullsoft is for <i>selling</i> to them.<p>I'd have taken the money too, but I wouldn't sit around and say "Look what they did to my company!" We seem to get that a lot around here. Big Tech Corp always takes the blame, never the entrepreneur. Well, big companies ruining acquisitions is practically a meme...what did you expect?

Sometimes I think I'm the only person who never liked Winamp. I always found it awful. Why do I need fancy skins for a media player?<p>I found Foobar2000 and never looked back. I know you can customize the hell out of Foobar...but I personally loved the default "giant list of searchable songs" format.

I will always remember Winamp as providing one of the 'wow' moments in my tech life - the first time I downloaded an MP3 from a BBS and played it (only 4MB a song!)<p>Also remembered for one of the greatest release slogans after the mess with the later versions:<p>&#62; "ALMOST AS NEW AS WINAMP 2 Nullsoft Winamp3" [1]<p>[1] Archive version: <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20030920142516/http://winamp.com/" rel="nofollow">http://web.archive.org/web/20030920142516/http://winamp.com/</a>

The greatest thing I remember from winamp was the visualisation plugin. It was a high performance graphics processor really. You could draw a couple of lines oscilloscope-style (plot based on volume in each band), throw in some blur, surface transformation, etc. and you could get amazing 3d-looking "textured" models moving around. It was an amazing framework for playing around with generated graphics. There were some great authors too who could make really nice visualisations effortlessly (or at least it looked like that) - I saw a "rendered" insides of menger sponge done in just a couple of lines of Dynamic Distance Modifier layer. Mind-blowing experience trying to figure out how it worked (like watching demo scene stuff).<p>I remember actually that once AVS got keyboard control, we tried to use it for a presentation in maths class. That's right - a music visualiser was easier to use for some high-school guys than other frameworks to do a 3d graphics presentation!

The original, lean Winamp was a fabulous piece of software--I can't think of many other products I've used that made me so happy, or seemed so much like magic. I still remember feeling awed by the idea that your computer could play, and Winamp was the face of the revolution, managing somehow to seem both nerdy and hip.<p>I stopped using Winamp a bit after the acquisition, so I really enjoyed the article - it filled in a lot of gaps for me. I guess now I know why it started sucking, eventually. Thanks to Frankel and the rest of the team for their hard work - what a cool time and place to be alive.

The most often overlooked, but technically best, music player of the late 90's was Kojofol. It's a shame it was never released as open source, but I'm fairly sure it couldn't be. The author had no license for the patented audio compression codecs it used, and it even contained an mostly unknown variant called "Astrid AAC". It's the last bit that has always had me fascinated, and no, it's not AAC as you know it. It was actually a variant of the VQF format with some MPEG-ish bits thrown in there for fun. It always sounded just gorgeous compared to other codecs at equivalent bit rates/sizes.<p>I have a copy of Kojofol around here somewhere along with some old "Astrid AAC" formatted files. I've always thought about reverse engineering it, but there's really no point when you'd just end up in a lawsuit.

"the company insisted on using its own indigenous billing system"<p>This is something I have a hard time understanding. Why do companies always seem to insist that everything in their operations is within their full framework? I mean, sure efficiency on paper (and only on paper as we see in this case), and probably a certain kind of clarity to the organization, but still. The right way to do this would be to have the support functions, such as billing be services that business units use if they think they are beneficial, and otherwise not. It would force support functions to be efficient in a whole different way, market driven, rather than "make executive happy"-driven.

Here's an interview/behind-the-scenes piece that Rolling Stone did with the creators of WinAmp in 2004 <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ou8YIbH0j_3qSpepPy1VruHeyliYWI2zvjbZk_pn8W8/edit" rel="nofollow">https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ou8YIbH0j_3qSpepPy1VruHe...</a> I thought it was funny how the Rolling Stone author comes across as a drooling fanboy :)

I must have missed something huge because I've been using Winamp for as long as I can remember and never ever seen a need to change. I don't see what's been undone. Missed opportunities to expand and become some big evil money scraper, sure, but what I see today is still a product that does what its supposed to do, and that's that.<p>What's the problem here?

Winamp is a great start up success story that's for sure. Homegrown, self taught developer learns Windows programming just because he wants to play mp3 files. Amazing success follows. Three cheers to Justin for that.

All I can say is winamp is open on my computer playing my music as I write this. Are there really other players out there that do a better job? Seems like a lot of people use iTunes but I've always found it to be a very slow media player. But maybe things have changed I need to reevaluate the current offerings?

What ever happened to Sonique?

One word, AOL.<p>There are many more in this startup's cemetery, see:<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_AOL" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_AOL</a><p>Let alone the total acquisitions value which is grater than AOL current valuation in order of magnitude.

Not mentioned, Dimitry Bolyrev, author of MacAMP and one-time roommate of Justin Frankel, who got cut out of the deal by Frankel's lawyer-scum father.

First time I launched visualizations via Winamp in my dorm room was a very happy moment. Some serious app nostalgia there. And, Wesley Willis:<p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JntDcqOxMsM" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JntDcqOxMsM</a>

Back around 2000 I took an old full-tower PC I had laying around and built a MP3 jukebox for my 1993 Volkswagen Fox. It ran Winamp with a plugin for a X10 Mouse Remote. I had a power inverter in the glove box and a fancy new stereo that had a 1/8" jack on the front. With a few bungee cords I secured the tower in the truck and the PC would boot every-time the car started. I skipped school for two days to build it. Without Winamp, I probably wouldn't have been able to do it. Kind of crazy that I can now hop in my car and play pretty much whatever I want using my iPhone &#38; Bluetooth.

Is there any other music player with a media library organizer as excellent as Winamp's? I don't mean that contentiously, but rather I just haven't enjoyed any other. Enter text into the search box, and it will filter simply massive playlists as you type. The instant feedback is great in filtering, especially if I forgot what an album was called but knew some other esoteric detail.<p>But I don't use it as a Swiss-Army chainsaw anymore. I just use it for listening to music in Windows. It's pretty good at that. (And version 5 isn't that bad - it's just version 2 plus 3 after all!)

That was a shame. I'm still using Winamp 2.81 (from 2002, 10 years ago). As long as it continues to work on Windows, I'll never let it go. Never could get used to the later versions.

Winamp 3, as an application, got it all right. Software developers even today struggle to get applications to be so usable.<p><pre><code> Dead simple interface Super fast start up Super fast search Easy playlist creation and management Simple keyboard shortcuts Simple configuration Huge library of plugins Zero distractions Stable </code></pre> I still miss winamp. To this day there hasn't been another media player that just got completely out of my way and let me listen to music.

I actually wrote an article about WinAMP and where it's failing a little while back: <a href="http://s00techified.wordpress.com/2011/07/05/soo-what-happened-to-winamp/" rel="nofollow">http://s00techified.wordpress.com/2011/07/05/soo-what-happen...</a><p>WinAMP like so many projects ultimately needs a steroid shot. It was never supposed to be an iTunes. But it was supposed to be the go-to player for Windows Users. It's a shame it's just stifled. AOL should open source it.

The problem is most of us think Winamp doesn't even exist anymore.<p>Couple of days back, a close relative of mine bought a used laptop from his friend. I and my cousin generally do technical stuff like OS installation for most of my family members. While browsing through the installed software we noticed Winamp, And we were like 'Does Winamp even exist anymore'!!! And it just came out spontaneously out of our mouths.<p>Winamp isn't in trouble, it is just not relevant anymore.

Weirdly, I used Winamp from '97 all the way through 2008. I don't remember whether it was v2 or v3 but I was happy with it and never tried anything else. I used VLC only for videos, and switched to MPC(-HomeCinema) later. I heard inklings about the iTunes revolution in the US but I had no iPod nor any need to use iTunes. It was only when I switched to a new desktop PC that I decided to try another music player for fun, which was foobar2000. I like fb2k, but still don't find it as subjectively nice as Winamp was - perhaps because of the default look. (I only use fb2k now, though.)<p>"The llama's ass" will always remain with me, as a vivid and irreverent memento of the first surging waves of the mass Internet crashing upon the shore of my community. Downloading and swapping MP3s in the early days, from websites and via IRC, before AudioGalaxy and Napster...those were exciting times. Thank you for the memories, Winamp.

For a while AOL support winamp pretty well. I remember watching hundreds of hours of streaming TV (and streaming radio) over Shoutcast and in2tv when AOL was trying to become a media company.<p>Now that all seems to be dead...fortunately some of it live on...VLC supports shoutcast TV and there are still dozens of stations still broadcasting.

Maybe it's just me, but every other quote in that article has been changed with square brackets.<p><pre><code> every [company] I thought was doing interesting things. I was being helpful by [looking at] product features [on a] business level </code></pre> On and on...I've never seen so much of that _ever_ before.

This article brought back some great memories for me.<p>As a result of reading this, I also looked around for more history on Winamp and enjoyed the post on oldversion [1] that walks through the build history all the way from the DOS version, and a trip to the waybacktime machine [2] to learn about the Fraunhofer winplay3, the only real predecessor to Winamp (packaged with pirated material as a player in the 90's) and now something Fraunhofer wants to deny existed.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.oldversion.com/blog/the-history-of-winamp/" rel="nofollow">http://www.oldversion.com/blog/the-history-of-winamp/</a><p>[2] <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20080619002511/www.sonicspot.com/winplay/winplay.html" rel="nofollow">http://web.archive.org/web/20080619002511/www.sonicspot.com/...</a>

Interesting to compare this to the tales of AOL's mismanagement in this comment thread: <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4120136" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4120136</a>

Used to love winamp, it was the only think used to play media. Until it got so bloated. Imagine it had a simple, clean interface and loaded lightning fast. I would never use anything else.

VLC happened?

Winamp... now THAT reminds me of the 1990s.

To me Winamp was always more of an accessory to Napster than anything else. Don't get me wrong, it was a solid program -- but it was really not much more of a utility through my eyes. On the other hand Napster really stands out in my mind as something revolutionary (ethics aside).

I still use Winamp 2.97. Anything beyond that I wouldn't really classify as good software. I <i>think</i> Justin Frankel was learning C++ at the time and tried to bite off a bit more than he could chew. This was just what I read off their own tech forums and in IRC.

Ah, winamp 2.2-something nostalgia. What a lovely brilliant little player it was. Reminds me of my other favorite player when I switched platform.<p>The story of Audion:<p><a href="http://www.panic.com/extras/audionstory/" rel="nofollow">http://www.panic.com/extras/audionstory/</a>

Winamp 3 was the only thing I missed about windows. The visualizer plugins and skins still pass anything available now. Had no idea there was a mac version, so I tried downloading it. Mac version plays mp3, no radio, visualizers, or plugins.

Nice read to make you remember the good 'ole days of MP3 ripping when it actually took some work. I'm not sure if Winamp could have ever reach iTunes level but it was a major piece of software in the 90s. Nostalgia!

Winamp was great back in the day, suffered with iTunes for a while and now have deleted all my mp3s and living solely with a Spotify premium account. But I loved those skins on winamp!

Still using Winamp lite to this day, and I also greatly enjoyed the creator's other great product: Reaper. Nostalgia for simpler times.

Sucking the life out of companies, products, and people is AOL's function in life. And it's damn good at it.

Anyone using the OS X version? All I need is playlists and start/stop using the special keyboard keys.

I'm still using winamp - love it's easily searchable music library and android integration!

I do miss my Star Trek theme. I've never been able to find a replacement for iTunes.

Winamp is the only media player I have found adequate so far because of the Nullsoft Signal Processing Studio.

XMMS.

I still haven't found a solution better than winamp with advanced crossfading output (which was last updated in 2002) to DJ a party... I usually bust out my 5-year old PC because nothing beats the crossfader of winamp (coupled with the awesome keyboard shortcuts - the ability to search for anything in the ID3 tags and enqueue the song via keyboard is so useful for a DJ)<p>Anyone have a better solution?<p>Amazing reading here how many people still use the old versions of winamp... It's pretty much the only thing I use my PC's for.

I still use Winamp (with an old-skool theme).<p>There's no better mp3 player for Windows.<p>It's light, has just the right amount of interface, no media library bull crap (doesn't force you to use one, anyways).

I still use winamp 2.9. It is minimal and it still plays mp3s. I don't need it for anything else.

Winamp was always a piece of crap.

One day WinAMP (nullsoft) was bought by AOL. Anyone remembers? That's when WinAMP started being worse.<p>And that's about what the article says.