Just one day after reporting that Winamp is shutting down, we get reports that Microsoft might be willing to take the ailing media player off AOL‘s hands. The once very popular media player was released more than 15 years ago and had quite a loyal following for a long time. The deal isn’t yet final ““ and TechCrunch warns that it could just be “wishful thinking” on the part of AOL “” but it says that the two companies are working out a price.
The first question that comes to mind is: What does Microsoft stand to gain from such a deal? The deal would also include Shoutcast, an internet radio service that was also built by Winamp’s creator, Nullsoft. Though Shoutcast remains operational today, reports say that its closure will be announced next week. With Winamp’s drastic decline in popularity and usefulness, it’s not clear exactly why Microsoft would be interested in buying it. At the least, the Winamp name still seems to bring back fond memories, and perhaps Microsoft too wants to see it stick around.
Whether they would just keep the service running or completely overhaul it to make it more functional in a digital cloud era remains to be seen. One thing is for sure, we wouldn‘t mind seeing Winamp being saved ““ even though very few of us are still using it.
Source: TechCrunch
